CAMPUS Safety Act of 2009

Madam Speaker, there certainly is no higher priority for all of us than the safety of our sons and daughters, and that safety involves not only their physical safety but their financial safety. The financial safety of our young men and women across this country is held in the palms of the hands of this Congress. In fact, this new liberal majority in Congress has been spending money so fast, and we have only been in session for 17 legislative days.

Madam Speaker, in thinking about the financial safety of these young people, if you look at just the time that Congress has been zeroed in on this so-called stimulus bill, Congress has spent $1.3 trillion in 9 legislative days. Let me repeat that. We have this new liberal majority. The country voted for change, but I am not sure this is the change that people wanted or expected. The change we got was spending money at an ever faster rate. $1.3 trillion has been spent by this liberal majority in 9 legislative days. That means that this new majority in Congress is spending money at a rate of $100 million a minute. Now that needs to sink in for a minute. For the change that we got,

this new Congress is spending money at the rate of $100 million a minute.

That is not unlike if I were to try to pay my mortgage with my MasterCard. Now, everyone knows you cannot do that. I cannot pay my mortgage with my MasterCard, but I would get a lot of frequent flyer miles out of that. It is as dangerous, I should say, to pay your mortgage with your MasterCard as it is for this Congress to imperil the financial safety of future generations by spending borrowed money we do not have.

This is an unprecedented spending spree that has much more to do with rewarding the constituency of the liberal majority--the trial lawyers and the labor unions--rather than stimulating the economy and protecting the financial safety of future generations.

We fiscal conservatives understand instinctively that the best way to protect the financial safety of future generations is to simply let Americans keep more of their own money by cutting their taxes, by giving them a tax-free holiday. How about that? That would be a straightforward, simple, immediate way to inject money into the economy, which is for people to spend and to invest as they wish rather than for the Federal Government to make the united policy decision that it is necessary to engage in deficit spending in order to stimulate the economy.

Rather than pumping the money out to labor unions and to trial lawyers and to new government programs and expanding the bureaucracy, why don't we simply inject that money into giving Americans X number of tax-free days where you keep 100 percent of your money, where you can invest it, save it, and spend it as you wish? In my opinion, there is no better way. I think that is something that every American can understand. There is no simpler, quicker or better way to stimulate job growth and to strengthen the economy than to simply let Americans keep more of their hard-earned money. That is the way to protect the financial stability of future generations.

Madam Speaker, as we go through this debate today and look to protect the physical and financial safety of future generations, it is important for this Congress to remember that every dollar we spend today is truly borrowed money. It is money that is going to have to be paid for by future generations, and we have an obligation--all of us as guardians of the Treasury--to remember the financial safety and security of our children and grandchildren.

In every spending decision we make, why aren't we approaching this from the perspective of we have got the biggest debt in the history of the Nation? We have got the biggest deficit in the history of the Nation. Therefore, the answer is ``no'' to new spending. We need to not only cut taxes but to cut spending at the same time. We need to all of us stay focused on what is truly in the best interests of these young people. How do we best protect their physical and financial security? By protecting the financial solvency of the United States of America.

Our most sacred obligation, it seems to me as Representatives of the people, is to protect the financial safety and security of the Nation.

Madam Speaker, I believe this is an unprecedented spending spree. When you analyze the history of the Congress of the United States, I would challenge anyone to find another time in our history when the Congress has ever spent at the rate of $100 million a minute. I don't think that has ever happened before. $100 million a minute. $1.3 trillion in 9 days. Now, the entire annual budget of the United States is about $900 trillion.

I have the privilege of serving on the Appropriations Committee, by the way, where my starting answer on all spending requests is ``no.'' ``Yes'' is very hard to earn. I am very careful about the few things that I ask support for in the sciences and in medical scientific research.

We have this new liberal majority in Congress. The change that this new majority and the new President promised has led to a spending spree of $100 million a minute. That has given this country a $1.3 trillion so-called stimulus spending bill in 9 legislative days, exceeding the annual budget of the United States, which is about $900 billion. This is unprecedented. It is dangerous. It imperils the financial safety of future generations, Madam Speaker, and I hope Congress throws this spending bill out in favor of tax cuts.

Madam Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (H.R. 748) to establish and operate a National Center for Campus Public Safety.

Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous materials on the bill under consideration.

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

Madam Speaker, over the past few years we have seen a number of tragic incidents of violence at colleges and universities, including the disastrous events at Virginia Tech and Northern Illinois University. Therefore, we have introduced the Center to Advance, Monitor and Preserve University Security Safety Act of 2009, or the CAMPUS Safety Act of 2009.

This bill will help schools to more effectively prevent such incidents, and to more effectively respond if such events do occur. It creates a National Center of Campus Public Safety, a program to be administered through the Department of Justice.

The center will train campus safety agencies, promote research in improving campus safety, and be a clearinghouse for campus safety information. The director of the center will have authority to award grants to institutions of higher learning to help them meet their enhanced public safety goals.

I would like to thank the gentleman from Texas, the ranking member of the subcommittee, Mr. Gohmert, for his support of this important bipartisan measure.

I urge colleagues to support the bill, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, I would inquire if the gentleman has other speakers.

I reserve my time.

Madam Speaker, I am prepared to close if the gentleman has concluded and will yield back.

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

I would like to thank the other side for their support of the underlying bill and for their comments that give rise to the challenge we may have in actually funding the legislation.

Sixteen years ago, we had a Democratic majority, and we passed a budget and an economic plan. It passed without a single Republican vote--not one in the House, not one in the Senate. It was signed by President Clinton. In 8 years, we eliminated the debt.

As a matter of fact, at the end of the 8 years, when Chairman Greenspan was testifying before Congress, the questions he was asked were questions like: What will happen when we pay off the national debt? What will happen to the bond market? What will happen to interest rates when we pay off the national debt?

It was anticipated that year that we were to clear up all of the debt held by the public. The median income went up about $7,000. Tens of millions of jobs were created. The Dow Jones industrial average more than tripled. Then in 2001, the Republican plan was adopted--the Republicans who have been lecturing on for the last few minutes about the economy.

As a direct result of their plan, we had the worst job performance since the Great Depression. The Dow Jones Industrial Average did not triple. It went down. The median income actually went down. We did not pay off the national debt. We almost doubled the national debt. We are now in a situation where we have to dig ourselves out of that mess. Everyone regrets the necessity of having to have a huge stimulus plan to get us out of the mess, but that is what we have had to do. We would like to listen to the other side and to their ideas, but unfortunately, as a result of recent history, we know where those ideas will put us. So we have a stimulus plan. Hopefully, it will get us out of the mess we are in so that we will have the funds to fund the CAMPUS Safety Act of 2009.

I would hope that the House would support the bill and would support the authorization. Then the next job we will do will be to actually fund it in order to get us out of the economic mess that we are in.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, I rise today in strong support of H.R. 748, the ``Center to Advance, Monitor, and Preserve University Security Safety Act of 2009'' or ``CAMPUS''. I would like to thank my colleague Congressman Bobby Scott for introducing this important legislation, as well as the Chairman of the Committee on the Judiciary, Congressman John Conyers. I urge my colleagues to support this legislation.

Importantly, H.R. 748 would establish a national center for campus public safety and employ a collaborative effort with local state and federal officials to fight violence on university campuses. This center would train agencies to better deal with emergency situations that occur on university campuses, helping to eliminate unpreparedness at the universities.

The future of our country sits in our classrooms everyday along with those that train them. It is our job as members of Congress to ensure that these future leaders and all those involved in molding them will be taught in a classroom or lecture hall.

H.R. 748 is a bill that takes a great step in ensuring that the potential that is harbored in our classrooms everyday is protected. The events that occurred at Virginia Tech and Northern Illinois University are disastrous examples of why we need more concentrated protection efforts implemented by the Federal government. The Virginia Tech shooting resulted in the slaying of over 30 members of the Virginia Tech family and many others were wounded. The shooting that occurred on the campus of Northern Illinois University on February 14, 2008 also killed and injured several individuals on the campus. Unfortunately, because these events were the first of their kind for the schools, they were not fully knowledgeable on how to respond. In my home state of Texas, the University of Texas at Austin in 1966 was struck by fear when a sniper from atop the university's bell tower struck and killed 16 people and wounded 31. The large gap in time between these events shows the length of inaction by the Congress in establishing a national center to protect the young minds in our Universities.

With the creation of a National Center for Protection of facilities of higher education, our country can finally begin to use the knowledge gained by officials in all states in conjunction with the Attorney General, the Secretary of Homeland Security, and the Secretary of Education in a collaborative effort to reduce violence in all higher education facilities across the country.

The CAMPUS Safety Act will create a National Center of Campus Public Safety, which will be administered through the Department of Justice. The Center will train campus public safety agencies, encourage research to strengthen college safety and security, and serve as a clearinghouse for the dissemination of relevant campus public safety information. By having this information, institutions of higher education will be able to easily obtain the best information available on ways to keep campuses safe and secure and how to respond in the event of a campus emergency.

The events that have taken place on the campuses of Virginia Tech, Northern Illinois, and Texas Universities shows that campus violence is not regional nor is it specific to one state and we should not be either of these things when fighting against it. That is why we must act as the front line in that battle against campus violence by passing this legislation and developing a National Center for Campus Public Safety. I urge my colleagues to support this legislation.

Madam Speaker, Judiciary Crime Subcommittee Chairman Bobby Scott and I would like to take this opportunity to thank one of the most productive and dedicated members of the Judiciary Committee staff, Mario Dispenza. For the past two years, Mario has served as a counsel for the Committee, working principally with the Crime, Terrorism, and Homeland Security Subcommittee.

Mario came to the Judiciary Committee on a detail from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF), where he has worked for 20 years. After graduating with honors from Kean University, he began his distinguished career with the ATF as a special agent in Cleveland, quickly moving up through the ranks to become a Program Manager in the Office of Professional Responsibility and Security Operations. While working for the ATF, Mario studied in the International Human Rights Programme at the New College of Oxford University, and earned his law degree with honors from The George Washington University Law School.

Mario's tenure with the Committee included work on legislation of critical importance to our nation's criminal justice system. He ushered several important measures through the Committee and the full House, including during the 110th Congress: H.R. 923, the ``Emmet Till Unsolved Civil Rights Crime Act,''; H.R. 1199, the ``Drug Endangered Children Act of 2007''; H.R. 1759, the ``Managing Arson Through Criminal History (MATCH) Act of 2007''; H.R. 1943, the ``Stop AIDS in Prison Act of 2007''; H.R. 2286, the ``Bail Bond Fairness Act of 2007''; H.R. 2878, the ``Enhanced Financial Recovery and Equitable Treatment Act of 2007''; H.R. 3480, the ``Let Our Veterans Rest in Peace Act of 2007''; H.R. 3456/S. 231 to Reauthorize the Edward Byrne Memorial Justice Assistant Grant Program at Fiscal Year 2006 Levels through 2012; H.R. 3971, the ``Deaths in Custody Reporting Act of 2008''; H.R. 4056/S. 2565, the ``Federal Law Enforcement Congressional Badge of Bravery Act of 2007''; H.R. 4238, the ``Literacy, Education and Rehabilitation Act of 2007''; H.R. 4300, the ``Juvenile Justice Accountability and Improvement Act of 2007''; H.R. 5057, the ``Debbie Smith Reauthorization Act of 2008''; H.R. 5938, the ``Former Vice President Protection Act of 2008''; H.R. 6083, To authorize funding to conduct a national training program for State and local prosecutors; H.R. 6295/S. 3598, the ``Drug Trafficking Vessel Interdiction Act of 2008''; H.R. 6838, the ``Campus Safety Act of 2008''; H.R. 4110/S. 973, the ``Restitution for Victims of Crime Act of 2007'' and H.R. 845, the ``Criminal Restitution Improvement Act.'' During the 111th Congress, Mario has been integral to the progress of: H.R. 738, the ``Death in Custody Reporting Act of 2008''; H.R. 748, the ``Center to Advance, Monitor, and Preserve University Security (CAMPUS) Safety Act of 2009''; H.R. 503, the ``Prevention of Equine Cruelty Act of 2009''; H.R. 1741, the ``Witness Security and Protection Grant Program Act of 2009''; H.R. 1667, the ``War Profiteering Prevention Act of 2009''; and the Department of Justice reauthorization appropriations.

We would like to thank the ATF for their generosity in lending such an able, responsible, and genial member of their team to the Congress. Mario will be missed, for he has become a trusted colleague, mentor, and friend to many members of the staff and Committee. We wish him the best of luck and extend our deepest gratitude for his service and professionalism.

Madam Speaker, I rise in support of the CAMPUS Safety Act of 2009, H.R. 748.

First let me start by thanking Congressman Scott for his continued leadership on campus safety issues. He has been a steadfast supporter of establishing a National Center for Campus Public Safety as well as improving hate crime reporting on campuses under the federal Jeanne Clery Act.

Creation of a National Center for Campus Public Safety grew out of recommendations from a 2004 National Summit on Campus Public Safety convened by the U.S. Department of Justice's Office of Community Oriented Policing Services, or COPS Office. The purpose of the Center is to support the field, foster collaboration and lasting relationships, facilitate information sharing, and provide quality education on safety issues facing colleges in a post-September 11, 2001 world.

After the tragic incidents of gun violence at Virginia Tech on April 16, 2007, at Northern Illinois University on February 14, 2008, and on other campuses across the country, we were reminded just how important this work is and it took on a new urgency. The Center will be able to help campuses create partnerships with mental health professionals and others to catch problems before they escalate and implement proven strategies to respond should another tragedy strike.

This effort is also consistent with and an important follow-up to legislation I sponsored that was enacted last year as part of the Higher Education Opportunity Act, P.L. 110-315. This new provision, known as the Virginia Tech Victims Campus Emergency Response Policy and Notification Act, or ``VTV Act'' and a part of the federal Jeanne Clery Act, requires institutions to enact comprehensive emergency response plans that include means to issue immediate warnings when an emergency threatens the campus.

I look forward to the Center working with the U.S. Department of Education, the agency with jurisdiction over the Clery Act, and campuses across the country to help them fully implement these life- saving notification requirements. Making sure that institutions have a central resource to turn to for assistance with this will be one of the most important things that we in Congress can do to help secure our Nation's campuses.

Important groundwork for the Center has already been laid. In 2006 the International Association of Campus Law Enforcement Administrators, Inc., IACLEA, received a grant to develop a strategic plan for the Center. Among other things they convened an advisory board comprised of key constituency groups to help guide this process.

I was especially pleased to see that a leading voice for students and families on campus safety issues--Security On Campus, Inc., SOC--was included at the table. It is imperative that SOC and other groups that represent the interests of those the Center is intended to protect, along with campus public safety professionals, continue to be heard as this process moves forward.

I would encourage the Attorney General and his staff to make sure that the COPS Office continues to reach out to diverse constituency groups and organizations that may have important resources to bring to bear.

Establishment of a National Center for Campus Public Safety will be a tremendous asset for our Nation's colleges and universities as they work to protect their students, employees, and others on campus.

I support the bill and ask my colleagues to join me.