Calling on the Government of the People's Republic of China to end its crackdown in Tibet and enter into a substantive dialogue with His Holiness the Dalai Lama to find a negotiated solution that respects the distinctive language, culture, religious identity, and fundamental freedoms of all Tibetans, and for other purposes.

Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding. I thank him for his leadership on the Foreign Affairs Committee, and Congresswoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, the ranking Republican on the committee, for their leadership in bringing this resolution to the floor. It isn't without a tear in the eye that we bring this to the floor and remember our colleague, Congressman Tom Lantos, and how important this resolution would have been to him.

Twenty years ago when I was a new Member of Congress, Tom invited some of us to a meeting that I will never forget. It was with His Holiness the Dalai Lama. At that time he presented to us his proposal for autonomy for Tibet. That is over 20 years ago he has been preaching autonomy, and it is on that basis that we wanted him to have the opportunity to have full negotiations with the Chinese Government. They had said if he doesn't reject the idea of independence, that cannot happen. Well, he rejected independence 20 years ago, much to the dismay of those who want independence.

But, in any event, Tom Lantos opened the door for many of us to meet with His Holiness the Dalai Lama. Twenty years later, in the Capitol of the United States, under Tom's leadership and of that Congresswoman Ros-Lehtinen, we were able to present to His Holiness the Congressional Gold Medal, the highest honor that this body can bestow. I am proud to say that President Bush stood there side-by-side with His Holiness presenting our Congressional Gold Medal to him. No President before had been so courageous, and I appreciate and am proud that President Bush did that.

Following that, we talked about taking a trip to India to talk about global warming, that our Energy Independence and Global Warming Task Force, which Mr. Markey and Mr. Sensenbrenner, who spoke so eloquently earlier, were in the lead on.

When we planned the trip, we had accepted His Holiness' invitation to visit him in Dharamsala, without any thought that it would be at a controversial time. As fate would have it, we made our plans in December and January. When we got there in the middle of March, it was following the crackdown in Tibet of the peaceful demonstrators in Lhasa and in other parts of Tibet by the Chinese Government. It was stunning really to see the reaction of the Chinese to the simple observance of the 49th anniversary of the Dalai Lama being forced out of Tibet by the Chinese. As the monks demonstrated and protested, the Chinese government cracked down.

While we were there, it was interesting to hear that the Government of China was saying that His Holiness was the instigator of violence in China,

that he had the ``heart of a jackal'' and all kind of animal references. We all love our animals, but they were not appropriate to His Holiness. We all know His Holiness to be the personification of nonviolence in the world, a bridge builder for peace and human understanding, as we said in our presentation of the Congressional Gold Medal to him.

So we thought it must be our fate, it must be our karma, that we would be in Dharamsala at that time. As was indicated by some of our colleagues, Mr. Inslee mentioned that some monks had traveled for 5 days over Himalayas to Dharamsala to tell us about the treatment they had received.

Some of the people we met with, Mr. Smith, had been in prison for many years in China. One woman who was in her eighties had been in prison for over 25 years. We heard of the torture that was exacted upon them as recently as a matter of days before we were there. So the torture that you described that you heard about in your committee continues to this day, and we very tearfully received that information from the prisoners.

But the point is that in Tibet you are arrested and repressed for what you believe; not even for acting upon your beliefs, but for what you believe, and that is something that flies in the face of everything we stand for as a country. That is why I was so pleased that the President stood there and showed bipartisan spirit, Democrats and Republicans coming together, as Mr. Smith mentioned. We have worked on this issue for many years and in a very bipartisan way in terms of China.

Another place where China has influence that Mr. Smith and Mr. Wolf have been leaders has been in the Sudan. But for the Chinese's absolute insistence that they will not sanction the Sudan at the U.N., we could perhaps have an improvement in the human rights situation and the political situation in the Sudan.

Many of us took a trip, many Members have been there, I led a delegation there with Mr. Clyburn to Darfur a couple of years ago and we saw firsthand the genocide that was going on there. It was horrible to see. We went to several camps. In one camp, 100,000 refugees were there. We saw the little children. The tiny ones really still had some brightness in their eyes. The older ones, they had seen too much.

In this camp, in the evening when it would be cool, if the father went out to get firewood, he would be killed. If the mother went out, she could be raped. In any event, the children could be kidnapped. They had been displaced from their villages with compliance of the Government of Sudan.

All we need is strong international leadership to end that situation. China stands in the way. When we are talking about Tibet and when we are talking about the Olympics and we are talking about Tibet, we have to remember Burma as well and the house arrest also for all these many years.

We have to remember what is happening in Darfur. I was reading in the paper the other day as the torch was going through Paris that one of the marchers, the carriers of the torch said that what was happening with the protesters was very unpleasant. I thought, you think that's unpleasant? Maybe you should be in the sub-human conditions that the refugees are in Darfur. If you think that's unpleasant, maybe you should be in a prison in Tibet for your faith and His Holiness, the Dalai Lama.

You think that's unpleasant? Maybe you could still be in prison from the Tiananmen Square massacre. Some people are still in prison from that time.

Mr. Smith knows well the fight we had at the time because shortly after, a couple of years after Tiananmen, we were still fighting for the release of the prisoners of Tiananmen. We had about a $5 billion a year trade deficit.

We thought that that would give us so much leverage with the Chinese Government that surely if we threatened the most-favored nation status, as it was called then, that they would yield and release these prisoners because it meant $5 billion a year to them.

Well, we didn't win. We didn't prevail in that situation.

As I say, it was a Republican President and a Democratic President. We didn't get any better policy from either of them when it came to China. They told us that granting most-favored nation status, they changed the name to permanent normal trade relations because it sounded better, would, in fact, improve the political situation in China and improve our trade relationship with China.

When these people are saying it's unpleasant, I think it's unpleasant to think that a $5 billion a year trade deficit is now $5 billion a week, $5 billion a week. That is a quarter of a trillion dollars a year trade deficit with China.

Has it improved our trade relationship? I don't think so. Has it improved the human rights situation in China? I don't think so.

Somewhere along the way we lost our way. We said at the time, some of us, if you choose to ride this tiger that is China, only China will decide when you can get off. China won the Olympics. Some of us supported resolutions in opposition to that, but they won the Olympics.

I don't support a boycott of the Olympics. I think our athletes who have trained should be able to go there and compete. I think it should be treated as a sports event. Any time it tries to rise to the occasion of harmony, one world, one dream, a unifying factor, that is where it falls short, because the Chinese cannot on the one hand take the political upside of the credibility given to them at any welcoming ceremony and refuse to hear the other side of the political view that they are unworthy of making that claim.

As we speak tonight as we are gathered here in this Chamber, in my City of San Francisco human rights activists are preparing for the torch to come through our city tomorrow, a city very committed to human rights. I was very proud that yesterday they were able to display a ``One World, One Dream: Free Tibet'' banner across the Golden Gate Bridge. It's just frightening to think of how they were able to accomplish it, but they got their message across with, probably in my view, the most beautiful backdrop in the world for all the world to see.

Tomorrow, as the torch goes through the city, people will voice their views on it. But, still tonight, Desmond Tutu is leading a prayer vigil in San Francisco in protest of what is happening with that torch going through.

Probably the most insulting of all, though, is that China insists that the torch go through Tibet, that it go to Mount Everest and through Tibet on its way back to Beijing. That's the biggest insult, I think, of all. The world should not allow that to happen. What's right about that?

When I was in Dharamsala, I had the privilege of addressing the crowd gathered in the square. I said at the time that the situation in Tibet challenges the conscience of the world. Indeed, the situation in Darfur challenges the conscience of the world, two places where China can change, make a difference. I also said that if we, the freedom-loving people throughout the world do not stand up for human rights in China and Tibet, then we lose all moral authority to talk about it any other place in the world.

It is many years of activism on this subject, and lots of documentation, but, as Mr. Smith mentioned, we know so many of the people firsthand, such as Harry Wu, who had been imprisoned. Why this is important tonight is because what the Chinese did, the most excruciating form of torture that an oppressor can exact on a political prisoner is to say to him or her nobody even knows you are here. They don't even care about you anymore. Society has passed this issue by. It's no longer important. Your family is out there suffering, you are here forgotten, but the world does not remember you.

Well, we are here tonight to say that the world does, a continuation of the work that Mr. Smith has referenced and others have referenced tonight about our calling to the attention of the world the names, the actual names of people who have been imprisoned for their beliefs, their religious beliefs, their political beliefs. This the resolution is very simple, and when we vote on it tomorrow, I hope we have an overwhelming vote.

What it says to the Chinese Government, as they prepare for the Olympics in harmony, ``One World, One Dream: Free Tibet,'' is that they end the

crackdown in Tibet, that they enter into substantive dialogue directly with His Holiness the Dalai Lama, that they allow independent monitors, journalists and others into Tibet and they also allow medical personnel. As was mentioned, people who have been beaten by the Chinese cannot receive medical assistance and they need that life-saving attention. That's what we are talking about here.

As for the accusation that that jackal, His Holiness the Dalai Lama, the instigator of violence in Tibet, started all of this, His Holiness called for and our delegation in Dharamsala associated ourselves with his call which was for an independent outside investigation as to how that all started. If they are going to accuse him, then they must be prepared to have an investigation to prove their point or to be proven wrong.

When we were there, I just want to close by saying, because it was very moving for us, when we got off the airplane and we were driving to Dharamsala for miles and miles and miles and miles, and when we got to Dharamsala to the center of town, we were greeted by many Tibetans flying American flags. We take the pledge in the morning, and any time we see the flag, it is an emotional experience for us. But to see these people who have had to struggle so much for freedom pay homage to our flag was quite a remarkable thing.

Here is one sign, which was my particular favorite. It said, ``Thank you for everything you have done for us so far.'' But all the American flags, the Tibetans flags, and, just again, it was a forest of flags there.

Mr. Holt referenced the children, when we went to the children's school, thousands of adorable children, many of them separated from their families, because that's the only way they could be raised in a Tibetan culture which is now restrained. Here are these children, they drew, they had thousands of these. I brought many of them home, an American flag on one side and on the other side a Tibetan flag, ``Free Tibet, Free Tibet.'' It goes on, ``Long live His Holiness the Dalai Lama.''

``Long live the friendship between the United States and Tibet,'' a friendship that began when Franklin Roosevelt sent His Holiness, when he was a very little boy, a watch. That watch had the rising of the sun, the months of the year, the phases of the moon, and it did tell time too. It was a very special fit, a gold watch. His Holiness has said that he took that watch with him when he left Tibet, imagine, a piece of America in that flight to freedom.

It is our wish that under the provisions of this legislation and the voices being heard all over the world now that those negotiations will take place between the Chinese Government and His Holiness the Dalai Lama. I, like many, have asked about the opening ceremonies. You don't want to boycott the Olympics, what about the opening ceremonies?

I think we should, since the Chancellor of Germany, Angela Merkel, has put that on the table, it should stay there. Our President should hold back any decision about going to those opening ceremonies until he sees what progress could be made, what leverage we could use to have those negotiations take place so that before too long and while His Holiness is still in good health he can return to Tibet and, indeed, the Tibetan people in their autonomous state of Tibet can be free.

I am very proud of this resolution. I couldn't be prouder of all the statements that were made this evening with all the passion and interest and history that went with it. I think it is a tribute to His Holiness, and I hope the vote tomorrow will be unequivocal about that. I am certain it will. I also they think that it is a tribute to our friend, Tom Lantos, who had been so faithful to this cause.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, Mr. Smith.

Mr. Speaker, by direction of the Committee on Rules, I call up House Resolution 1084 and ask for its immediate consideration.

Mr. Speaker, for the purpose of debate only, I yield the customary 30 minutes to my friend and namesake, the gentleman from Washington (Mr. Hastings). All time yielded during consideration of the rule is for debate only.

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

General Leave

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members be given 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks on House Resolution 1084.

Mr. Speaker, House Resolution 1084 provides for consideration of H.R. 2016, the National Landscape Conservation System Act, under a structured rule. The rule provides 1 hour of general debate, controlled by the Committee on Natural Resources.

The rule makes in order the eight amendments listed in the Rules Committee report on this resolution. Six of these amendments will be offered by Republican Members, two by Democrats. Each amendment is debatable for 10 minutes. This rule is a continuation of our commitment to ensuring that the minority be given a fair opportunity to amend legislation on the House floor.

The rule provides one motion to recommit, with or without instructions.

Mr. Speaker, the American public has a vested interest in protecting our Nation's lands from the destructive uses that would ruin their natural beauty. In my home State of Florida, the protection and preservation of the magnificent ecosystem known as the Everglades, which spans 3 million acres of wetlands and is home to rare and endangered species, is of utmost importance to me and my constituents. It is a national priority to ensure that these majestic wetlands and others around our country will be preserved for all future generations of Americans to enjoy. The preservation of the National Landscape Conservation System is equally important to this Nation and to this Congress.

The underlying legislation would protect 27 million acres of land of the American West considered to have significant historical, cultural, ecological, scientific or scenic value. Most of the lands in this system are already protected and administered by the Bureau of Land Management, including wilderness areas, wild and scenic rivers and national monuments. This bill will help to streamline management of the system and reduce overall bureaucracy in the program.

If the statement of the gentleman from Alaska yesterday in the Rules Committee is any indication, and I am referring to our colleague Congressman Young, there is a small minority of Members who may try and argue that this bill strips the private property rights of landowners. Quite the contrary. This bill protects only the lands the Bureau of Land Management already has authority over. Additionally, no owners' rights have been violated in the past, and there is no reason to believe they will be violated in the future.

Some may also argue that the underlying legislation changes the core management authority governing the individual National Landscape Conservation System units. Conversely, the bill includes an extensive savings clause that makes it abundantly clear that nothing in the bill alters the management authority governing the individual units.

According to the Congressional Budget Office, the bill would not affect the Bureau of Land Management's budget, direct spending or revenues, or the budgets of State, local or tribal governments.

Finally, the amendments made in order under the rule go a step further to address energy development, grazing rights, hunting and fishing and border security, ensuring that this bill does not change the law in these areas at all. All this bill does is help conserve and protect our Nation's land, our Nation's heritage.

It enjoys broad bipartisan support from groups including the Wilderness Society, Sierra Club, Defenders of Wildlife, American Hiking Society, the National Council of Churches, Boone and Crockett Club, National Trust for Historic Preservation, National Wildlife Foundation, and the Outdoor Industry Association.

The bill also enjoys the often unheard of support from both President Bush and former President Clinton.

It is my sincere hope that the House will pass this rule and underlying bill with the same overwhelming bipartisan support it currently enjoys. I urge my colleagues to support this rule and the National Landscape Conservation System Act as we further our efforts to protect and preserve public lands throughout America.

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

Mr. Speaker, I will reserve my time until the gentleman has closed and yielded back his time.

Mr. Speaker, I would ask my friend from Utah not to leave, and I am going to ask him a question and then yield time to him, with the Speaker's permission.

The gentleman from Utah is my good friend and he served with us on the Rules Committee, but I am just curious, as the ranking member of the committee of relevant jurisdiction, did you offer these measures? And, in addition, in the Rules Committee did you offer any statement in support of your measures? Finally, you did offer one amendment that I would suggest we save yourself from by not making it in order because you are not asking, of course, or want us to take up a measure that is going to cost the Treasury $5 billion.

I yield to the gentleman.

I will work on that.

Reclaiming my time, did you not have the privilege or did you choose not to come?

Yes, but that wasn't a privilege lost, that was just an airline not working.

Reclaiming my time, I wanted my friend to have an opportunity to say those things that he did. And notwithstanding his admonition, I can assure him that when he is offering measures that are going to cost the Treasury $5 billion and violate the PAYGO rule, that on the Rules Committee I will try to save him one more time.

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

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

Mr. Speaker, this is a fair rule and an inclusive rule. We have heard here why we must pass this rule and the National Landscape Conservation System Act. Far too many of our Nation's natural treasures have already been compromised by a variety of destructive threats. It is Congress' responsibility to ensure that the National Landscape Conservation System is forever protected. Each National Landscape Conservation System unit has been established by Congress or Presidential proclamation and is managed according to its enabling authority. This legislation establishes the system in statute.

It is crucial for Congress to act as a good steward for environmental land protection and fully codify the National Landscape Conservation System. It is our duty to help preserve the natural heritage of our Nation for all future generations of Americans to one day enjoy. I urge a ``yes'' vote on the previous question and on the rule.

The material previously referred to by Mr. Hastings of Washington is as follows:

Amendment to H. Res. 1084 Offered by Rep. Hastings of Washington

At the end of the resolution, add the following:

Sec. 3. Notwithstanding any other provision of this

resolution, the amendment printed in section 4 shall be in

order as though printed as the last amendment in the report

of the Committee on Rules if offered by Representative Bishop

of Utah or a designee. That amendment shall be debatable for

10 minutes equally divided and controlled by the proponent

and an opponent.

Sec. 4. The amendment referred to in section 3 is as

follows:

Page 4, line 9, strike ``and''.

Page 4, line 11, strike the period and insert the

following:

(3) by ensuring that no private property will be included

in the system without written consent of the owner.

(The information contained herein was provided by

Democratic Minority on multiple occasions throughout the

109th Congress.)

The Vote on the Previous Question: What It Really Means

This vote, the vote on whether to order the previous

question on a special rule, is not merely a procedural vote.

A vote against ordering the previous question is a vote

against the Democratic majority agenda and a vote to allow

the opposition, at least for the moment, to offer an

alternative plan. It is a vote about what the House should be

debating.

Mr. Clarence Cannon's Precedents of the House of

Representatives, (VI, 308-311) describes the vote on the

previous question on the rule as ``a motion to direct or

control the consideration of the subject before the House

being made by the Member in charge.'' To defeat the previous

question is to give the opposition a chance to decide the

subject before the House. Cannon cites the Speaker's ruling

of January 13, 1920, to the effect that ``the refusal of the

House to sustain the demand for the previous question passes

the control of the resolution to the opposition'' in order to

offer an amendment. On March 15, 1909, a member of the

majority party offered a rule resolution. The House defeated

the previous question and a member of the opposition rose to

a parliamentary inquiry,

asking who was entitled to recognition. Speaker Joseph G.

Cannon (R-Illinois) said: ``The previous question having been

refused, the gentleman from New York, Mr. Fitzgerald, who had

asked the gentleman to yield to him for an amendment, is

entitled to the first recognition.''

Because the vote today may look bad for the Democratic

majority they will say ``the vote on the previous question is

simply a vote on whether to proceed to an immediate vote on

adopting the resolution . . . [and] has no substantive

legislative or policy implications whatsoever.'' But that is

not what they have always said. Listen to the definition of

the previous question used in the Floor Procedures Manual

published by the Rules Committee in the 109th Congress, (page

56). Here's how the Rules Committee described the rule using

information from Congressional Quarterly's ``American

Congressional Dictionary'': ``If the previous question is

defeated, control of debate shifts to the leading opposition

member (usually the minority Floor Manager) who then manages

an hour of debate and may offer a germane amendment to the

pending business.''

Deschler's Procedure in the U.S. House of Representatives,

the subchapter titled ``Amending Special Rules'' states: ``a

refusal to order the previous question on such a rule [a

special rule reported from the Committee on Rules] opens the

resolution to amendment and further debate.'' (Chapter 21,

section 21.2) Section 21.3 continues: Upon rejection of the

motion for the previous question on a resolution reported

from the Committee on Rules, control shifts to the Member

leading the opposition to the previous question, who may

offer a proper amendment or motion and who controls the time

for debate thereon.''

Clearly, the vote on the previous question on a rule does

have substantive policy implications. It is one of the only

available tools for those who oppose the Democratic

majority's agenda and allows those with alternative views the

opportunity to offer an alternative plan.

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

Madam Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Sensenbrenner), the coauthor of this resolution who recently returned from Dharamsala, where he met with the Dalai Lama.

Madam Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the distinguished gentleman from Connecticut (Mr. Shays).

Madam Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Texas, an esteemed member of the Committee on Foreign Affairs (Mr. Poe).

Madam Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from Michigan (Mr. McCotter).

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

First of all, I want to thank Speaker Pelosi for introducing this very important resolution of which I am very proud to be one of the cosponsors, and especially for the trip, along with other Members of the House, that you led to India to be at the side of His Holiness, the Dalai Lama, in this hour of terrible suffering for the Tibetan people.

Madam Speaker, tonight we are here to speak frankly about what the Chinese Government is doing in Tibet. Last week, Lodi Gyari, His Holiness' Special Envoy, told me and others on the Congressional Human Rights Caucus that Tibet has ``become, particularly in the last few weeks, in every sense an occupied nation, brutally occupied by armed forces.''

Madam Speaker, despite the fact that there is an extensive news blackout, the grim consequences have gotten out.

Chinese soldiers and police have shot large numbers of people. The death toll is now well over 150. We don't have any idea how many have been wounded, how many are right now lying, wounded or dying, in attics and cellars, because they know that if they go to the hospital, they will simply disappear into the Chinese Laogai.

The Chinese Government has been subjecting Tibetans to mass arrests. They have searched whole sections of cities, house by house. Chinese officials admit to nearly 2,000 arrests. The China Commission estimates that there are at least 1,000 more. Frankly, I wonder if there might be thousands more, since there are large areas of Tibet from which nothing has been heard in weeks, where phone lines and cell towers and e-mail have been simply turned off.

Many thousands of monks are now being held under house arrest or in lockdown. Chinese riot police have surrounded some Buddhist monasteries and are letting no one get in and no one get out. Many have been tortured. I would remind my colleagues that we are seeing now, in a massive way, what has been ongoing and pervasive for decades.

I chaired a hearing in 1995, Madam Speaker. We heard from six survivors of the Laogai. One of those was Palden Gyatso, a Tibetan monk who spent 24 years in prison. When we invited him to come and speak, he brought with him some instruments of torture that are routinely employed and used in a horrific manner against men and women in the Chinese concentration camps. He told us that many people die of starvation. But when he brought those instruments, he couldn't even get past our Capitol Police. They stopped him. We had to come down and get him through.

Then, when he held up those batons that are used in the mouth and elsewhere in order to provide electric shocks, he actually broke down. He held it up and he said, ``This is what went into my mouth as a Buddhist monk and into the mouths of many other people to shock and to deface,'' and he has trouble swallowing to this day.

He talked about these self-tightening handcuffs, and held up his wrists and showed us the marks on his body, not just on his wrists, but elsewhere. He talked about piercing with bayonets. And this is routine. I would encourage Members to realize what goes on each and every day, but now in a more pronounced way, in a more massive way, against the people of Tibet, through the use of torture.

The Chinese Government, Madam Speaker, what they are doing right now is exactly what happened in some of the parts of the world ruled from the Communists. Who can forget the Soviet invasion of Hungary, which was still felt on the streets of Budapest in the 1980s, even though that happened

back in 1956. Tibet is now a cruel place, not the people, but the Chinese imposition of their crackdown.

Madam Speaker, it should be noted and emphasized that the Tibetan people have not provoked the government into this newest wave of repression. It is the Chinese Government that has provoked the Tibetan people to protest, a protest that, perhaps because of the Buddhist emphasis on peace, has been overwhelmingly peaceful.

As we all know, Tibet has been subjected to Chinese Communist tyranny since 1951. Since 1959, the Chinese Government is responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Tibetans--and that is a low estimate. The current number of Tibetans living in China is now about 5.4 million people.

I think Members should realize too that there has also been--and the Dalai Lama speaks about this when he speaks about his Five Points of Engagement--this population transfer, where the entire culture is being replaced by a Han Chinese culture. They are getting very good jobs. The incentive has been given them by the Chinese Government, in order to marginalize and decrease the Tibetan people, to make them more of a minority in their own land. What we are talking about here is nothing less than a planned destruction of a culture that has now gone to new lows with this recent crackdown.

In fact, the Chinese Government's attitude toward Tibet can be seen in these two insults by Zhang Qingli, the Secretary of the Chinese Party of the Tibet Autonomous Region, who offered to the people these words. He said, ``The Communist Party is like the parent to the Tibetan people, and it is always considerate about what the children need.'' We are talking about a very abusive parent here. He also said, ``The Central Party Committee is the real Buddha for Tibetans.'' What a sacrilege! What a sacrilege! What a violation of fundamental human rights.

I will say only a couple words about the Olympics, Madam Speaker. The IOC made a great mistake in allowing China to host the Olympics. Who can forget when they were vying for the 2000 Olympics and they let Wei Jingsheng out. Speaker Pelosi knows him very well. I met him in Beijing when he was let out, very briefly. As soon as they didn't get the Olympics, they rearrested him and beat him and tortured him. They finally let him out because he was close to death. But then the IOC awarded the Olympic venue to Beijing several years later.

They shouldn't be held in a nation that cracks down on all kinds of political dissent and has a system of coercion where brothers and sisters are illegal as part of its one-child-per-couple policy, its forced abortion policy, and also a country that is responsible for killing so many Africans. The most recent is happening in Darfur. This really is, as my colleague Ms. Lee said earlier, the ``genocide Olympics.''

That repression and those killing fields are ongoing today in Darfur. As we all know, some 4 million people died in Southern Sudan even before that, and it was the Chinese who enabled those killing fields as well.

Finally, let me just say briefly to my colleagues that there are American companies who may be supporting this tyranny. I am afraid some of them are doing that, playing smaller or larger roles in the crushing of Tibet, working with the Chinese Internet Surveillance Bureau to block Web sites and blocking and tracking down Tibetans who send Internet reports of arrests and massacres.

The New York Times has reported that the Chinese Government is indeed, and not unexpectedly, blocking Web sites to prevent uncensored news from reaching the Chinese people, including the Web sites of CNN, BBC, YouTube, Google and Yahoo.

The Times has also reported that the Chinese Internet Surveillance Bureau has warned Tibetans about sharing factual news about the protests. They have said, and I quote them, this is the Chinese Bureau, ``We inform Internet users that it is forbidden to post news about Tibet events . . . The Internet Surveillance Bureau will carry out filtering and censorship . . . Anyone infringing this ban will have their IP addresses sent to the police, who will then take the necessary steps.'' That means, Madam Speaker, arrests; that means, Madam Speaker, torture of those who simply try to share the truth as to what is going on in Tibet.

Who can forget Shi Tao, the journalist who got 10 years simply for sending information to an NGO in New York about what the Chinese Bureau of Propaganda had told them they could not do with regard to the Tiananmen Square massacre? Now it is going on in Tibet, and the ugly cycle continues.

As I think Members know, the Global Online Freedom Act legislation, which is pending and hopefully will come to the floor, would finally give us a full and thorough accounting as to this complicity, whether it be witting or unwitting, on the part of these Internet companies, so that we are not part of this tyrannical regime that is now so brutally suppressing, murdering and torturing Tibetan people and putting so many monks into prison, rather than letting them be in their monasteries, where they want to practice their faith.

Madam Speaker, this is an excellent resolution you have brought to the floor. I congratulate you. This is bipartisanship, I believe, at its best. We are all in support of the Dalai Lama. You have led on this for so many years, and are doing so now as Speaker, and I hope we get very strong support for this, on behalf of the Tibetan people and on behalf of the Dalai Lama.

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

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my friend and namesake Mr. Hastings from Florida for yielding me the customary 30 minutes, and I yield myself such time as I may consume.

(Mr. HASTINGS of Washington asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. Speaker, this is an unfair rule making in order, in my view, a bad bill, and a poor way to run the House of Representatives. It is claimed by this legislation's proponents that it is just an attempt to write into Federal law a new BLM, Bureau of Land Management, land management scheme that was invented by then-Secretary of Interior Bruce Babbitt.

It is the weakest of justifications for passing legislation and an abdication of responsibility for the legislative branch, for this Democratic Congress, to argue that we have to pass this bill to authorize what the last Democratic President created by fiat. Yet the harm to the powers and responsibilities of the House and our public lands is far greater.

This bill simply doesn't write into law the national landscape conservation system that Secretary Babbitt created, because this bill is written so poorly and loosely that it actually gifts the authority of the Congress over to the political appointees and career department bureaucrats in the Interior Department.

Vague words such as ``values'' are left undefined by this bill. It is the job of the Congress to define terms and write bills plainly and clearly. Not doing so gives away the power to these presidential appointees and career bureaucrats. When the elected Congress doesn't do its job, the unelected agencies and departments are free to impose their opinions and philosophy as laws and regulations.

With the faults and deficiencies of this bill so obvious, it was no surprise that last night 28 amendments to improve this legislation were filed with the Rules Committee, and with the Democratic track record of shutting down debate in this Congress, it was certainly no surprise when the Democratic Rules Committee blocked 19 of these amendments and denied representatives an ability to come to the floor and have a debate and a vote on their proposals.

My dear friend from Florida noted that the rule makes in order two Democratic amendments and six by Republicans, but I must point out that this means that every amendment offered by the Democrats were made in order, but 19 were not allowed to be made in order that were sponsored by Republicans.

Many relevant and constructive amendments were shut down by the Democratic Rules Committee. These include amendments to ensure the ability for wind and solar energy production on these public lands, to require that the Federal Government fully fund payments in lieu of taxes to local governments before spending new funds on landscaping, to ensure that there is no net loss of off-highway recreation areas and boating access facilities, to protect existing grazing rights, to ensure that hunting, fishing, recreational shooting and other current uses can continue on BLM lands and to require that the privately owned property of American citizens are not included in the NCLS without the written consent of the owner.

When the Rules Committee blocked these amendments, they acted to put the decisions in the hands of the Interior Department. This bill is a threat to the ability of citizens to enjoy and use their public lands. Democrat leaders won't even permit Members of the House to vote on whether Americans will be able to continue to ride, boat, graze livestock, shoot, hunt or fish on the lands that they can use today. This Congress says to Americans that their private property rights are not certain, that these rights and their land is at risk subject to the whims of the Interior Department.

That Democratic leaders are shutting down debate on this bill is truly not a surprise, but it is a broken promise. When the new majority took control after the 2006 elections, they promised to run the most open House in history. Unfortunately, they have not kept this promise.

In fact, the Democratic majority has set a historic record of the most closed rules in the history of the House, and they have already done that in record time. They have shut down debate on the House floor more than any other majority ever.

Why have they done so? It certainly isn't because of the tremendous accomplishments of the 110th Congress. The list of items not done, overdue bills and unfinished business of this House is long and growing longer.

For example, House Democrats have refused to pass the bipartisan Senate bill to protect our country by modernizing the 1970-era FISA law to monitor foreign persons in foreign places. Another example is the farm bill that expired last September, and America's farmers have been left waiting for months and wondering when this Congress will act.

Another is fixing the Medicare payments to doctors so that they can keep caring for seniors. Another is passing funding for the war on terrorism. The new No Child Left Behind act awaits renewal later this fall. Also the Secure Rural Schools Act desperately needs to be passed to keep the Federal promise made to rural communities whose hospitals and schools are at risk.

The State sales tax deduction expired last December for those States that don't have a State income tax like Washington and Florida. With the deadline just 6 days away, the new majority has yet to create a final budget outline for the next fiscal year.

The House isn't working on these national priorities, but last week the Rules Committee went so far as to pass a rule to restrict debate and permit only three amendments on legislation to renew the Fire Administration.

The end result of this closed process was that all three amendments passed by a voice vote and the bill passed this House by 412-0. Hardly a controversial bill, but under the closed process we are left with that example of how this House is being run.

With the House neglecting its work and not acting on these priorities, we have a lot of free time on our hands, to which the new majority leaders respond by shutting down Republicans from being allowed to offer amendments on even the most noncontroversial bills, like last week and what we will take up this week.

This is an unfair rule on a poorly written bill that threatens each and every American's ability to recreate, use and enjoy their public lands. It puts citizens' private property rights at a real risk.

I urge my colleagues to oppose the rule, to oppose the bill and insist that the House get to work on the important business this Congress is thus far failing to get done.

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

Mr. Speaker, at this time I would like to yield 4 minutes to my good friend and former member of the Rules Committee, Mr. Bishop of Utah.

Mr. Speaker, I yield the gentleman an additional 2 minutes.

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

I would just make this point: There are many times when amendments are filed by Members of this body and they do not come to the Rules Committee and their amendments are made in order, and that was the case, for example, of one of the amendments that was made in order by a Democrat Member last night. Those things do happen.

Mr. Speaker, as I mentioned earlier, this is a restrictive rule that prevents Members of this House from offering amendments to try and improve the poorly and loosely written underlying bill.

As has been said several times, 19 amendments were blocked by the Rules Committee. This rule does not allow the House to debate amendments to protect American's current ability to enjoy these BLM lands through fishing, riding, hunting, and boating.

But even more egregious is that this rule blocks the House from voting on an amendment to protect private property rights of American citizens. As Representative Bishop has pointed out, and he had filed an amendment to the Rules Committee, it was amendment No. 13, that would have simply directed the Secretary of the Interior not to include private property within the National Landscape Conservation System without the written consent of the landowner, and this deals with the issue of in holdings, as Mr. Bishop mentioned.

Mr. Speaker, this is a fair amendment. It is an important amendment. It seeks only to protect the private property rights of American citizens. The Rules Committee should not have blocked his amendment from being made in order and let Members vote ``yes'' or ``no'' on that amendment.

So I am going to give, Mr. Speaker, Members an opportunity to support or oppose private property rights by asking Members of the House to defeat the previous question on the rule. By defeating the previous question, I will seek to amend the rule to allow Representative Bishop to offer his private property rights amendment No. 13. By voting ``no'' on the previous question, Members are voting to respect and protect the private property rights of all Americans.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to have the text of the amendment and extraneous material inserted into the Record prior to the vote on the previous question.

Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to vote ``no'' on the previous question and the rule, and I yield back the balance of my time.

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

I appreciate the gentleman from Washington yielding me the time. It is always a pleasure for me to be on the floor with the two Representative Hastings who represent different parts of the country here. It's a pleasure.

Mr. Speaker, when I was a young State legislator in my second term, actually I was still in my twenties, so you know that was a long, long time ago, someone once came to me with an idea of doing some PR by doing what everyone wants to do, and that is to eliminate useless legislation. I thought this is great. This is going to be a great stunt that I can use to eliminate some useless legislation.

I picked a statute still in the Utah code still on the books which required the State of Utah to fund a summer encampment for every veteran of the Civil War, the Spanish-American War, and, since when this was written, it also said the Great War. Since there were no veterans alive, I thought this was an ideal situation to try to pass, and I introduced the bill.

The unfortunate thing is, even though this bill was supposed to do nothing, when it went to the committees of jurisdiction, there was this impending desire on the part of legislators to make the bill actually do something. By the time it went actually through the process, this bill allowed for any veterans group, including Boy Scouts, to be able to use all the National Guard armories in the State of Utah free of charge.

It got to the point where I killed my own bill, because all of a sudden something that wasn't supposed to do anything was now doing something. What it was doing was really, really wrong and not intended.

Now the proponents of this particular bill say the greatest benefit from this bill is simply that it basically does nothing. It doesn't change anything.

However, one of the proponents, when asked by his local newspaper if this would increase the cost and the regulations on these lands said, well, you establish the system first and then we go to step two.

It is what that step two may or may not be that has the greatest amount of concern with this particular bill, which direction will we be going? This bill talks about establishing values for the management of this land, but nowhere does it ever talk about what these values actually are.

We will hear amendments on the floor that we are talking about grazing and hunting and fishing and energy rights, as those are part of the values that should have been described and should have been defined in the very basis of this bill.

But what is significant is what will not be allowed to be discussed on this floor with this particular bill. Specifically, how do you treat individuals with this bill? We had an amendment that deals with the concept of recreation, boating and shooting rights. There would be no net loss of territory. On these types of recreation activities, this is a perfect example to talk about is this part of the value of these lands? It's traditional, and yet it was denied the ability to even present that on the floor.

We talked about the border security. There will be an amendment which will codify the status quo on border security, which is not what we wanted to bring up, because what we were talking about is not the status quo, which is bad, but changing the status quo. Those efforts to try and expand that opportunity on border security were denied discussion on this floor on the rule.

Now, this particular entity, this national land conservation system, came from the fertile mind of Secretary Babbitt. It also did not have a specific definition of what the values were.

There are two types of parks and monuments. Not all parks and monuments are created equal. Parks and monuments, run by the Park Service, talk about values and they are specified as to what those values are. What this bill is now trying to do is codify a new entity that will be talking about values of BLM, parks and national monuments.

Now, when you talk to the Department of the Interior, one of the reasons they say they are somewhat supportive of the concept of this bill was because it would allow them to maintain the multiple use values that make a difference between park service land and BLM land.

Yet when we tried to add an amendment to this bill, both in committee and again in the Rules Committee, to specifically say that one of the values must be multiple use, it was defeated on a straight party-line vote.

Once again, the very essence of the difference between national park monuments and national parks and BLM national parks and national monuments is this concept of multiple use. Yet we are not allowed to even talk about that, which goes to the question, if people eventually take legislation and want it to do something, in what direction will this take us? What will they start wanting to do?

If the core difference between national park land and BLM land is not specified in this legislation, where, actually, will we end up? This bill may, indeed, do something that we do not want to see happening, and this entity, which is nothing more than a $15 million a year boondoggle right now, a redundancy at best, could indeed end up to do something that creates real harm and real destructive elements.

Now there is one other part that should have been part of this discussion and was not allowed by my friends on the Rules Committee.

It was briefly addressed by the gentleman from Florida, but he missed the point, I think, that the gentleman from Alaska was trying to make dealing with personal property.

Supposedly this issue does not deal with personal property because we are only dealing with BLM property. The difference, though, is with all of those entities within the Bureau of Land Management proposal, there are private inholdings. They have been a constant source of problem and contentions.

Unless you specify the significant value of how you are going to treat these inholdings, you make the situation of those private property holders much more difficult. You raise the specter of trying to change access restrictions because, indeed, if you are now going to run this land like the park service land, that will be a problem.

Not only do you create another level of bureaucracy to make those trying to solve their problems much more difficult to get equity, you also create all sorts of different solutions to be there that should have been specified in the legislation.

Protecting the private property holders' inholdings in those properties right now is one of the values that BLM lands should be doing, and it should be specified. It is not in this bill. The fact that we cannot add that to this bill, because of a ruling on a partisan vote by Rules Committee, is devastatingly wrong.

It will take us down a path where who knows what will be the end result. But, it is an end result that will have the high likelihood of harming individual people, individual people who use this land right now, either for recreation purposes, for sporting purposes, for hunting purposes, or for their own land value purposes, will be harmed unless those issues are clearly specified in this language, and the amendments to do that were not made in order.

Several good amendments were made in order, not nearly enough because this bill, as written, is flawed; and this bill, as amended, would still be flawed because it doesn't address those particular issues.

Thank you very much, but please don't try and save myself from anything in the future.

Put all of my amendments on the floor, and then, then you've got a good argument that is there.

Indeed, one of these amendments, specifically the amendment on multiple use, was discussed in committee and was defeated on a partisan voice vote. That issue still is one that is relevant and needs to be part of this bill. If it is not, you have taken the core values between BLM and National Parks and blurred the lines into nonexistence. You can't do that. That has to be one of the values that is here.

The second issue I am talking about is private property rights. As I recall, I did not present that in the committee so but it is still very relevant and should be here, and is one of the problems that we are developing if we continue to go on with this.

I do have to say to the gentleman from Florida, no, I did not have the privilege of going before your committee and testifying last night. Gosh, I wish I could have done that, and I know you guys really wanted me to be there to continue the testimony and elongate the meeting last night.

I thank you if I can answer that question, and as much as I would have loved to, I must say in reality Delta Airlines made the decision for me.