Providing for the consideration of the Senate amendment to the bill (H.R. 2761) to extend the Terrorism Insurance Program of the Department of the Treasury, and for other purposes.

Madam Speaker, by direction of the Committee on Rules, I call up House Resolution 893 and ask for its immediate consideration.

Madam Speaker, for the purpose of debate only, I yield the customary 30 minutes to the gentleman from Florida, Mr. Lincoln Diaz-Balart. All time yielded during consideration of the rule is for debate only.

General Leave

Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks on H. Res. 893.

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

Madam Speaker, as I said earlier, I have no problem with the rule. I do have a problem with the underlying bill, which provides the President with another blank check in support of his Iraq war policy, but I stated I think very clearly my concerns about that.

Other than a few closing remarks, I am going to reserve my time.

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

Madam Speaker, as of today, 3,893 of our bravest men and women have lost their lives in Iraq. Tens of thousands more have been wounded. They have lost limbs, lost their sight and suffered severe brain injuries. We have spent half a trillion tax dollars, none of it paid for. When is enough enough? When will this Congress finally reflect the will of the American people and begin to bring our men and women in Iraq home to their families? I hope it is today. I think it can be today.

As I mentioned earlier, Madam Speaker, in today's Washington Post the U.S. military has found that the strongest point of agreement among all Iraqis across all sectarian and ethnic groups is the belief that the United States' military invasion of their country is the primary root of the violent differences among them and that the departure of ``occupying forces,'' their words, is the key to national reconciliation.

Madam Speaker, I include today's Washington Post article for the Record.

[From washingtonpost.com, Dec. 19, 2007]

All Iraqi Groups Blame U.S. Invasion for Discord, Study Shows

(By Karen DeYoung)

Iraqis of all sectarian and ethnic groups believe that the

U.S. military invasion is the primary root of the violent

differences among them, and see the departure of ``occupying

forces'' as the key to national reconciliation, according to

focus groups conducted for the U.S. military last month.

That is good news, according to a military analysis of the

results. At the very least, analysts optimistically

concluded, the findings indicate that Iraqis hold some

``shared beliefs'' that may eventually allow them to surmount

the divisions that have led to a civil war.

Conducting the focus groups, in 19 separate sessions

organized by outside contractors in five cities, is among the

ways in which Multi-National Force-Iraq assesses conditions

in the country beyond counting insurgent attacks, casualties

and weapons caches. The command, led by Army Gen. David H.

Petraeus, devotes more time and resources than any other

government or independent entity to measuring various

matters, including electricity, satisfaction with trash

collection and what Iraqis think it will take for them to get

along.

The results are analyzed and presented to Petraeus as part

of the daily Battle Update Assessment or BUA (pronounced boo-

ah). Some of the news has been unarguably good, including the

sharply reduced number of roadside bombings and attacks on

civilians. But bad news is often presented with a bright

side, such as the focus-group results and a November poll,

which found that 25 percent of Baghdad residents were

satisfied with their local government and that 15 percent

said they had enough fuel for heating and cooking.

The good news? Those numbers were higher than the figures

of the previous month (18 percent and 9 percent,

respectively).

And Iraqi complaints about matters other than security are

seen as progress. Early this year, Maj. Fred Garcia, an MNF-I

analyst, said that ``a very large percentage of people would

answer questions about security by saying `I don't know.'

Now, we get more griping because people feel freer.''

Iraqi political reconciliation, quality-of-life issues and

the economy are largely the responsibility of the State

Department. But the military, to the occasional consternation

of U.S. diplomats who feel vastly outnumbered, has its own

``mirror agencies'' in many areas. Officers in charge of

civil-military operations, said senior Petraeus adviser Army

Col. William E. Rapp, ``can tell you how many markets are

open in Baghdad, how many shops, how many banks are open . .

. We have a lot more people'' on the ground.

On Iraqi politics, ``we have four to six slides almost

every morning on `Where does the Iraqi government stand on

de-Baathification legislation?' All these things are embassy

things,'' Rapp said. But Petraeus is interested in ``his

`feel' for a situation, and he gets that from a bunch of

different data points,'' he added.

Even though members of the military ``understand the

limitations'' of polling data, Rapp said, ``subjective

measures'' are an important part of the mix. In July, the

military signed a contract with Gallup for four public

opinion polls a month in Iraq: three nationwide and one in

Baghdad. Lincoln Group, which has conducted surveys for the

military since shortly after the invasion, received a year-

long contract in January to conduct focus groups.

Outside of the military, some of the most widespread

polling in Iraq has been done by D3 Systems, a Virginia-based

company that maintains offices in each of Iraq's 18

provinces. Its most recent publicly released surveys,

conducted in September for several news media organizations,

showed the same widespread Iraqi belief voiced by the

military's focus groups: that a U.S. departure will make

things better. A State Department poll in September 2006

reported a similar finding.

Matthew Warshaw, a senior research manager at D3, said that

despite security improvements, polling in Iraq remains

difficult. ``While violence has gone down, one of the ways it

has been achieved is by effectively separating people. That

means mobility is limited, with roadblocks by the U.S. and

Iraqi military or local militias,'' Warshaw said in an

interview.

Most of the recent survey results he has seen about

political reconciliation, Warshaw said, are ``more about

[Iraqis] reconciling with the United States within their own

particular territory, like in Anbar. . . . But it doesn't say

anything about how Sunni groups feel about Shiite groups in

Baghdad.''

Warshaw added: ``In Iraq, I just don't hear statements that

come from any of the Sunni, Shiite or Kurdish groups that say

`We recognize that we need to share power with the others,

that we can't truly dominate.'

According to a summary report of the focus-group findings

obtained by The Washington Post, Iraqis have a number of

``shared beliefs'' about the current situation that cut

across sectarian lines. Participants, in separate groups of

men and women, were interviewed in Ramadi, Najaf, Irbil, Abu

Ghraib and in Sunni and Shiite neighborhoods in Baghdad. The

report does not mention how the participants were selected.

Dated December 2007, the report notes that ``the Iraqi

government has still made no significant progress toward its

fundamental goal of national reconciliation.'' Asked to

describe ``the current situation in Iraq to a foreign

visitor,'' some groups focused on positive aspects of the

recent security improvements. But ``most would describe the

negative elements of life in Iraq beginning with the `U.S.

occupation' in March 2003,'' the report says.

Some participants also blamed Iranian meddling for Iraq's

problems. While the United States was said to want to control

Iraq's oil, Iran was seen as seeking to extend its political

and religious agendas.

Few mentioned Saddam Hussein as a cause of their problems,

which the report described as an important finding implying

that ``the current strife in Iraq seems to have totally

eclipsed any agonies or grievances many Iraqis would have

incurred from the past regime, which lasted for nearly four

decades--as opposed to the current conflict, which has lasted

for five years.''

Overall, the report said that ``these findings may be

expected to conclude that national reconciliation is neither

anticipated nor possible. In reality, this survey provides

very strong evidence that the opposite is true.'' A sense of

``optimistic possibility permeated all focus groups . . . and

far more commonalities than differences are found among these

seemingly diverse groups of Iraqis.''

Madam Speaker, the Iraqi people themselves firmly believe that reconciliation will not happen until we leave. If the Iraqi people want us to leave and a majority of the Iraqi Government wants us to leave and a majority of the American people want us to leave, then why on Earth are we still staying?

As I have said on a number of occasions today, what is contained in the underlying bill is a blank check. There are no restrictions on the tens of billions of dollars that we are going to give the President in support of his Iraq policy. There is no conditionality. There are no timetables for withdrawal. There is nothing. This is a blank check. We are into the fifth year of this war, and after all that we have seen, after all that we have been told that has turned out not to be true, it seems unbelievable to me that this Congress would vote for yet another blank check.

Madam Speaker, I urge my colleagues to reject this latest blank check, which essentially is in support of an endless war in Iraq, and vote ``no'' on the underlying bill. I ask for support of the rule.

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

The previous question was ordered.

Madam Speaker, by direction of the Committee on Rules, I call up House Resolution 893 and ask for its immediate consideration.

Madam Speaker, for the purpose of debate only, I yield the customary 30 minutes to the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Lincoln Diaz-Balart). All time yielded during consideration of the rule is for debate only.

I yield myself such time as I may consume.

General Leave

Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members be given 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks on House Resolution 893.

Madam Speaker, H. Res. 893 provides for consideration of two measures, an amendment to the omnibus appropriations bill to provide funding for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and a continuing resolution. Each measure is debatable for 1 hour.

The continuing resolution is necessary to keep the government open and running while the omnibus bill is processed and sent to the White House for the President's signature.

Madam Speaker, while I have no problem with the rule that is before us, I cannot support the underlying funding for Iraq. The tens of billions in new money for the war in Iraq has no timetables for withdrawal, no limitations, no requirements that the Iraqi Government make progress towards reconciliation, no benchmarks, no conditionality, nothing. Madam Speaker, this is a blank check.

The new money in this bill represents one cave-in too many. It is an endorsement of George Bush's policy of endless war. It is stunning that so many have gone along for so long asking no questions, giving this President everything he wants.

After years of Bush ineptitude, how dare this Congress provide another blank check for this administration. No weapons of mass destruction, a constantly changing rationale for our occupation, benchmarks for the Iraqi Government that never get met, no democracy, no respect for human rights, no reconciliation, a government plagued with corruption, and no end in sight. All this, Madam Speaker, and some of my colleagues still say, ``stay the course.''

Our brave men and women in uniform have done their job. So many have sacrificed, and far too many have made the ultimate sacrifice. They have been successful in some areas of Iraq in quelling some of the violence, essentially providing the chance, the window of opportunity for the Iraqi Government to move ahead with efforts for reconciliation.

The response of the Iraqi Government has been to do nothing. No reconciliation.

Isn't our responsibility, as Members of Congress, to raise questions? Shouldn't we put pressure on the Iraqi Government to do more? And shouldn't we put pressure on our own government to not be such a cheap date? Don't we owe our soldiers whom we put in harm's way better than acquiescence to a Commander in Chief who is incapable of ever admitting error?

Madam Speaker, there is no military victory to be had in Iraq. To the extent that this awful situation becomes less awful depends on political progress, something the Maliki government doesn't want to do, and something our own leaders seem willing to keep putting off.

I want more, Madam Speaker, I expect more, for the sacrifice our troops have made. Quite frankly, the status quo is not worth one more American dollar or one more drop of American blood. I am sick to my stomach when I think of the hundreds of billions of dollars that we have already spent in Iraq while we nickel and dime our own people at home. None of this war is paid for. It is all borrowed money. It's all on the backs of our kids. It's all debt that is being bought up every day by China.

Madam Speaker, I long for the day when we have a President who will threaten a veto on a bill that fails to provide all our people with health care, or that fails to adequately fund education for our children. Instead, we have a White House that engages in blackmail tactics: Give me what I want on Iraq, with no strings attached, or I'll shut the government down.

Those who defend the status quo say that we need to give the President whatever he wants so we can assure ``victory.'' ``Victory'' at the beginning of this war was ridding Saddam Hussein of weapons of mass destruction. When we found that there were none, the definition of ``victory'' changed. In fact, over the last 5 years, the definition of ``victory'' has changed several times.

For me, the closest thing to victory is ending this war, getting an Iraqi Government that puts national reconciliation above its own self- interest and getting our troops out of that country and home to their families where they belong. I believe the surest way to get that type of victory is setting a firm timetable for the U.S. occupation of Iraq to end. It will change the dynamic, and it will force the Iraqi Government to embrace, rather than avoid, reconciliation.

In fact, in today's Washington Post, the U.S. military has found that the strongest point of agreement among all Iraqis across all sectarian and ethnic groups is the belief that the U.S. military invasion of their country is the primary root of the violent differences among them and that the departure of ``occupying forces,'' their words, is the key to national reconciliation.

Madam Speaker, the Iraqi people themselves firmly believe that reconciliation will not happen until we leave. If the Iraqi people want us to

leave, and a majority of the Iraqi Government want us to leave, and a majority of the American people want us to leave, then why on Earth are we staying?

Let me also state, Madam Speaker, what ``victory'' is not. It is not allowing this President to kick the ball down the field and dump this war on the next President of the United States. That is called ``passing the buck,'' and that is what we will be doing if we approve this new Iraq money.

One final observation. The war in Iraq has not only cost us dearly in terms of human life and treasure, it has also cost us in terms of our standing in the world. We have lost the support and the respect of so many who have looked to us as a force for what is good, decent and positive in world affairs. I warn my colleagues that our lost prestige and standing is also a threat to our national security. Madam Speaker, I want my country back.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, if I can inquire if the gentleman from Florida has additional speakers.

I will reserve my time at this point.

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

First, let me just respond to the gentleman from Texas by saying he is entitled to his own opinions, but he is not entitled to make up the facts. The facts are that the difference between this Congress under the Democratic majority and under the previous Congress under the Republican majority is they left Washington before their work was done. They kicked all their work onto the Democratic Congress that was elected last November. They didn't do their job. If the Congress could be sued for malpractice, they would have been sued for malpractice.

The bills that we are dealing with today the House of Representatives passed in a timely manner, all of the appropriations bills, as we were supposed to do. We did it, and they were good bills, and I commend Chairman Obey for his work on those bills. We did that in spite of all the obstructionism and resistance from the Republicans in this House.

Unfortunately, because of the Senate rules, an individual Member, and in the case of the Senate, the Senate minority leader, was successful in slowing down the process and preventing conference committees from meeting and preventing the Senate from considering certain bills. Now they can be proud of that. That is just obstructionism. That is not doing the people's business. But the bottom line is that we are here today dealing with an omnibus appropriations bill to get the people's business done; not to kick the ball down the field and dump it on next year's Congress. It is to do it now.

One other thing, Madam Speaker, and that is one of the major differences with the new Democratic majority is that we have helped undo some of the damage that the Republicans have done to domestic spending over the years. Because of the Democratic majority and our ability to reorder priority, education is better off today than it would be if the Republicans were in control. Medical research, there is more money for medical research to find lifesaving drugs and to find cures to disease because the Democrats made that a priority, over the Republican objections. Our veterans are getting a better deal today. Under the Democratic majority, there is the largest single-year increase in veterans health in the history of the Veterans Administration. Those are the things that we have done.

Today, we are considering a Senate addition to what we did in the House, which I have an objection to, and that is the funding for the war in Iraq. The Republicans, while they were in control, gave the President a blank check; no accountability, no questions asked, nothing. And here we are, the fifth year into this war, with no end in sight, and there are some of us who believe the time has come to call the President to account, to start the process of bringing our troops home so they can be reunited with their families.

So there's a huge difference between the Democrats and the Republicans.

Madam Speaker, at this time I would like to yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from North Carolina, Mr. Etheridge.

Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding.

I oppose this rule that will allow this omnibus to be brought to the floor. We had some discussion yesterday, and it should continue today, about the over 9,000 earmarks that are in this bill. It was mentioned by the majority leader yesterday, or the day before. He said, ``Having said that,'' in justification for bringing this bill forward, when it was pointed out that many of these earmarks had been brought to the floor for the first time with this bill, he said, ``this bill incorporates all of the bills that passed this House. This is not as if these are items of first impression. These are bills that we considered in this House and passed with essentially overwhelming bipartisan votes.''

That is only partly true. Yes, these bills, many of them were brought to the House before. A few of them left the House earmark-free. One of them, the Department of Homeland Security bill, we were told we can let this one go and not have the earmarks added because it isn't traditionally earmarked. Guess what? There are more than 100 earmarks that have now been air-dropped into that bill. We are sitting today with hundreds, literally hundreds of earmarks that have been air- dropped into the bill that we have never seen before yesterday. Never seen before yesterday, or Monday, I should say. That is simply wrong.

Let me give you just a couple of examples. There was $1.6 million for the City of Bastrop, Louisiana. According to the Bastrop Daily Enterprise, ``The money is officially earmarked for the purchase of bulletproof vests and body armor. Bulletproof vests only cost about $700 to $800, however, so $1.6 million would appear to be overkill.'' Police Chief Curtis Stephenson agrees, conceding, ``There's no way we need that kind of money just to put all our people in vests.'' Again, this was an earmark for bulletproof vests for the police officers in this city, and the city comes back and says, We don't have that many police officers.

We are told that these earmarks are vetted. How are they vetted? The answer is they are really not. They are not vetted by that party; they aren't vetted by this party. It's more of a game of ``Can you catch me with my hand in the cookie jar or not?''

Earlier this year, when I was challenging a couple of earmarks on the floor, one Member who had one of the earmarks I was going to challenge beat me to the floor to withdraw his own earmark because he didn't want the scrutiny that would come if that earmark were publicly debated. Later that same week, the Appropriations Committee, when they found out certain other earmarks might be challenged on the floor, called the Rules Committee and struck some other earmarks that were to be debated on the House floor because they couldn't withstand the scrutiny. That isn't vetting. That is hoping that your hand isn't caught in the cookie jar.

Now we have this bill today with over 9,000 of these earmarks. Now, the majority will say, Hey, that is a 17 percent reduction in the number of earmarks in our worst year. Put another way, that's like saying, You know, last year I smoked five packs a day and I am down to three this year. I darn-well quit. That is hardly something to pat ourselves on the back about.

Put another way, we have just 17 percent fewer earmarks than the worst year in congressional history for earmarking. Please don't use this side of the aisle as a bar with which to judge yourselves. That is a bar that a snake could crawl over. We didn't handle ourselves well in the majority with regard to earmarks. That is one of the big reasons we find ourselves in the minority today. But when the new majority came into power in January of this year, we were told that we would have transparency, that we would have names next to earmarks, that there would be time to actually discuss these earmarks and debate them, that if there were earmarks air-dropped into a bill, there would be an opportunity to strike all earmarks, at least one vote.

We don't have that today because this isn't a conference report. You simply have to change the name of the bill that is coming to the floor and you obviate your obligation to live by your own rules. That is simply not right. It's nothing that we should be proud of.

I mentioned earlier on the floor today that an astute Member of Congress told me yesterday one of the toughest parts of being a Member of Congress is to remember what we should be outraged about. I would submit that this is something that we should be outraged about, but we are not. We blithely pass it as if this is standard business. It shouldn't be. It shouldn't have been for us when we were in the majority, and it shouldn't be for the new majority.

It was in a press report yesterday that some Members were upset, I think justifiably, that there seemed to be just a few Members getting all the earmarks. They mentioned in the press article that a lot of the earmarks are going to the vulnerable Members instead of to the established Members in their district.

I would say that that is something I think outside of the Beltway people say that is just wrong, for money to go to Members just to be re-elected. But here, unfortunately, we see that and say, Hey, that is one of the noblest purposes we have seen for earmarks. Usually they're tied to campaign contributions or something else.

We need a moratorium on earmarks. We should pass a CR rather than this omnibus and go into next year without these 9,000 earmarks.

I want to thank the gentleman from Florida, my friend, for yielding me the time.

Madam Speaker, we are here right now for the purpose of providing for the consideration of the Senate amendment to the House amendment to the Senate amendment to the bill, H.R. 2764. That is what we are here for. I will repeat that. We are here for providing for the consideration of the Senate amendment to the House amendment to the Senate amendment. It is rather confusing, not just to Members of Congress. It is confusing, I think, to the American people, also.

Madam Speaker, today, I would like to just read from the Calendar, Wednesday, December 19 on the back page, ``Status of Major Bills, First Session.'' Here is essentially what it says.

It says that Homeland Security appropriations was completed on June 8 in the House and July 26 in the Senate. Never sent to conference.

Energy and Water appropriations, July 17. Never completed by the Senate.

Military Construction and VA, June 15 in the House, September 6 in the Senate.

The new fiscal year has already started. This new Democrat majority has been sitting on these bills, including the VA, since September 6. And yet they are coming to the floor today just a week before Christmas terribly upset, terribly upset, and yet it says here, let me see if I got this right, sent to conference, these are all blanks. They didn't go to conference. The Speaker of the House and the Senate majority leader never had a conference. They didn't get together to try and work out the differences that they had. What they did is they let Members sit day after day after day.

Just 1 year and 75 days ago, when Republicans had completed all but one of these bills, we were called irresponsible and we couldn't do the people's business. And yet here we are, 1 year later plus 75 days, and only one of the bills has made it to the President. I could keep going. Financial Services and General Government; Labor, Health, Human Services and Education.

My gosh, what is happening?

What is happening to this House of Representatives and the United States Congress? What is happening is that I believe we had what I would consider to be false hopes and promises that were established in the first place about all these problems that were going to go away. Just give our good friends, the Democrats, that ability to hold the House and Senate, and they will do it. But, Madam Speaker, they didn't even get the work done between themselves, forget blaming things on the President of the United States or Republicans. They couldn't even appoint their own conferees. They couldn't even do their own work.

Today, we sit here and listen to all the things that are still wrong and about how Republicans have stood in the way and been obstructionists. That is not the facts of the case. The facts of the case are all these bills that I have talked about were never even sent to a conference, and today, the reason why we are still talking is because allegedly there is a glitch, a glitch, because the negotiations between the majority in the House and the majority in the Senate couldn't get it right. Well, if you do things in the dark, if you do things where nobody else is involved, that is

what you get. I am told it's a $70 billion mistake.

I just don't understand why business is done this way, when 1 year ago we had all but one bill done before the election. All but one. If you systematically go through a process and work through the bills in the light of day, where the information is posted on the Web site, where you give people time to read the bill, I think a better result happens.

I think it's deceptive. I think it's deceptive to say that this House would be the most honest, open, and ethical Congress in the history, when there was no attempt from the very beginning to even live up to that.

So here we are, just a few days before Christmas, still burning time, trying to burn time, because we know that the negotiators have to fix the problems, and that is a real problem to this House, and I think it is to the American people.

Madam Speaker, I would like to take just a few minutes to say this. The Republican Party congratulates our colleagues and all of us today for presumably ending what we are doing, and I am pleased to say that it was a victory for the taxpayers because we are not going to increase taxes, as our good friends the Democrats wanted to do and have bemoaned all week long about not getting that massive tax increase.

We are going to go and make sure in SCHIP that we don't take 2 million children from their own private insurance to a government-run program that is still overburdened. We are going to make sure that we don't do, I think, bad things in dealing with our ability to find terrorists with the FISA bill.

So it's a great victory today for the taxpayer, for the people who want to protect this country, because what has prevailed is what we said should happen, and that is that the Republican minority kept after this process to make sure that the taxpayers don't lose on this last day before we leave before Christmas, and we are going to stay after that because we believe we are doing the right thing.

I am proud of what we will accomplish here today if we can find this $70 billion mistake that has happened and we can close the books on the year and know we went home with no further damage.

Madam Speaker, first I would like to thank the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. McGovern) for the time, and I yield myself such time as I may consume.

We are here 80 days into the new fiscal year, and one appropriations bill has been signed into law. Today, we are here to consider hopefully the last piece of the appropriations puzzle, as well as yet another continuing resolution before the omnibus appropriations bill is sent to the President.

What is so interesting about this process is that the omnibus bill that has finally come before the House in many ways is very similar to the proposals that the minority has advocated for months, and is very similar to what we predicted would, in fact, be the legislation that ultimately would become law. However, Madam Speaker, instead of working toward a compromise, a bipartisan resolution to this legislation, a bipartisan product, the majority decided to use the appropriations process to, in effect, score political points while funding for our troops in critical theaters of operation has been dangerously delayed.

Now, the underlying amendment we will consider today will finally help bring our appropriations process to a close, and it will do so in a fiscally responsible manner, funding the Federal Government and funding our troops in critical theaters of operation without preconditions and without strings. These funds will allow for the progress that we have recently seen to continue to take hold. It will allow for our men and women in uniform to continue to do their job as they have done so, so effectively, in fact, so heroically for so long.

I think commendation is due. I think congratulations is due to all who have worked on this process, and that congratulations I think is due to those on both sides of the aisle who have worked hard, have worked diligently, to come up with this final appropriations legislation work product that will fund the Federal Government for the next fiscal year, and especially, as I have said, will continue to fund in critical theaters of operation our men and women who are doing such an extraordinary job and who deserve our unrestricted support.

There are very important, very important endeavors, efforts and projects that are funded in this appropriations bill, in this omnibus appropriations bill. We cannot, I believe, emphasize sufficiently, especially at this critical time, our support and the continued need of our support for our great ally and friend, Israel, that lives in an area of the world that is extremely dangerous. And while we have the benefit of thousands of miles between, for example, the state sponsor of terrorism in Iran, the regime in Iran, Madam Speaker, while we have thousands of miles physically separating us from that state sponsor of terrorism, our friend and ally, Israel, does not. And so I have always felt very strongly about our need to support Israel. The fact that this appropriations legislation includes the support that it does for our friend and ally, Israel, is something that I think is very important. And there are many, many aspects of this legislation that we, on a bipartisan basis, can be very proud of. And we, I think, will have further opportunity to discuss them.

But today, I am told that there are some glitches that need to be worked out, and that the majority needs some time and the appropriators need some time on both sides of the aisle to work them out. So we will be hopefully seeing those glitches being resolved in the next minutes and hours.

As we wait for those glitches to be resolved, we are cognizant of the fact that we are finally bringing to the floor the rule that will allow for consideration of the final legislative product on the appropriations for this year.

With that in mind, Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

I would like, at this time, Madam Speaker, to yield such time as he may consume to the distinguished member of the Rules Committee, my friend, Mr. Sessions of Texas.

Madam Speaker, I yield 5\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Arizona, Mr. Flake.