Providing for consideration of the Senate amendments to the bill (H.R. 4899) making emergency supplemental appropriations for disaster relief and summer jobs for the fiscal year ending September 30, 2010, and for other purposes.

I thank the gentleman for yielding.

I rise in support of the Obey amendment, amendment No. 2 to H.R. 4899, Supplemental Appropriations for FY 2010. However, I do so with significant reservation because of the $9 billion in nuclear loan guarantees that have been inserted into this bill of otherwise badly needed funding.

The nuclear power industry has already received $51 billion in loan guarantee authority. The guarantees leave the taxpayer on the hook for energy policy so fiscally irresponsible, it has attracted bipartisan opposition. Indeed, private investment in new plants is nearly impossible to come by because the investment is so unattractive. The Congressional Budget Office characterized the risk of default on such projects as ``well above 50 percent.'' Even plants under construction are being abandoned. If private firms won't invest, should we be putting taxpayers on the hook?

Energy from wind and solar makes more financial sense and creates many more jobs when compared with nuclear power sans massive subsidies. But the loan guarantees for clean energy sources, which were added to make the nuclear loan giveaways easier to swallow, are not an industry priority. They need more direct subsidies to get started with the urgency required to address global warming.

This amendment also contains otherwise valuable funding for teacher's jobs, Pell grants, and Gulf Coast oil spill clean-up. I voted for this amendment because of the dire needs in these areas and others. But slipping in $9 billion in nuclear loan guarantees when we struggle to find money to extend unemployment compensation and create new green jobs is not acceptable.

The Economics of Nuclear Reactors: Renaissance or Relapse?

(By Mark Cooper, Senior Fellow for Economic Analysis, Institute for

Energy and the Environment, Vermont Law School--June 2009)

Just a few days before his dismissal, General McChrystal wrote what has been described as a devastating report on his mission. He pointed out that he faced a resilient and growing insurgency with too few troops, and he expected no progress in the coming months. Why are we continuing to send our troops into a mission impossible? Why are we committing our troops to a situation which is certainly bound to bring about more casualties, both of our troops and innocent civilians?

General Petraeus is promising an escalation of the war which will put more American lives on the line and more innocent civilians killed. Do we support our troops? If we do, and if we really paid attention to what's going on in Afghanistan, if we really supported our troops, we'd bring them home. And that's exactly what the Barbara Lee amendment is designed to do, and that's why we should support it.

As related by William Polk in his recent article in ``Counterpunch''--Just a few days before his dismissal, General McChrystal wrote what has been described as a ``devastating report on his mission.'' He pointed out that he faced a ``resilient and growing insurgency'' with too few troops and he expected no progress in the coming months.

Why are we continuing to send our troops into a mission impossible? Why are we committing our troops to a situation which is certainly bound to bring about more casualties, both of our troops and innocent civilians? General Petraeus is promising an escalation of the war which will put more American lives on the line and more innocent civilians killed.

Do we support our troops? If we do, and if we really paid attention to what's going on in Afghanistan, if we really supported our troops we would bring them home. That's exactly what the Barbara Lee Amendment is designed to do, and that's why we should support it.

What Now?

Afghanistan Sitrep

(By William R. Polk)

On June 24, the International Herald Tribune published an

editorial from its parent, The New York Times, entitled

``Obama's Decision.'' Both the attribution--printing in the

two newspapers which ensures that the editorial will reach

both directly and through subsidiary reprinting almost every

``decision maker'' in the world--and the date--just before

the appointment of David Petraeus to succeed Stanley

McChrystal--are significant. They could have suggested a

momentary lull in which basic questions on the Afghan war

might have been reconsidered.

That did not happen. The President made clear his belief

that the strategy of the war was sound and his commitment to

continue it even if the general responsible for it had to be

changed.

The editorial sounded a different note arising from the

events surrounding the fall of General McChrystal: Mr. Obama,

said The Times, ``must order all of his top advisers to stop

their sniping and maneuvering'' and come up with a coherent

political and military plan for driving back the Taliban and

building a minimally effective Afghan government.''

In short, Mr. Obama must get his team together and evolve a

plan.

Unfortunately, the task he faces is not that simple.

First, consider the ``team.'' It has two major components,

the military officers whom McChrystal gathered in Kabul. As

they made clear in the Rolling Stone interview, they think of

themselves as ``Team America'' and hold in contempt everyone

else. Those who don't fully subscribe to their approach to

the war are unpatriotic, stupid or cowardly. Those officers

are not alone. Agreeing with them is apparently now a large

part of the professional military establishment. They are the

junior officers whom David Petraeus and Stanley McChrystal

have selected, promoted and with whom they take their stand.

The other ``component'' is not a group but many groups with

different agendas and constituencies. The most crucial for my

purposes here are the advisers to the President; they were

dismissed out of hand as ``the wimps in the White House.''

Most, but not all, were civilians. Other senior military

officers, now retired, who are not part of ``Team America''

and its adherents were also disparaged. Famously, General Jim

Jones, the director of the National Security Council staff,

was called a ``clown.''

These were the comments that forced Mr. Obama's hand and

were what the press latched upon to explain the events. But

many missed the point that McChrystal had just a few days

before his dismissal written a devastating report on his

mission. Confidential copies of it were obtained by the

London newspaper, The Independent on Sunday, which published

it today, but of course

the President had seen it earlier. Essentially, its message

boiled down to failure.

McChrystal pointed out that he faced a ``resilient and

growing insurgency,'' with too few troops and expected no

progress in the coming six months. Despite expenditures of at

least $7 billion a month, his politico-military strategy

wasn't working. Within weeks of the ``victory'' over the

Taliban in the agricultural district of Marja, the Taliban

were back and the box full of government he had announced

proved to be nearly empty. As the expression went in the days

of the Vietnam war, whatever happened during the day, the

guerrillas ``owned the night.'' As he described it, Marja was

the ``bleeding ulcer'' of the American campaign.

Behind McChrystal's words, the figures were even more

devastating: Marja, despite the descriptions in the press is

not a town, much less a city; it is a hundred or so square

miles of farm land with dispersed hamlets in which about

35,000 people live and work. Into that small and lightly

populated area, McChrystal poured some 15,000 troops, and

they failed to secure it.

To appreciate what those figures mean, consider them in

context of Petraeus's counterinsurgency theory, on which

McChrystal was basing his strategy. As he had explained it,

Marja should be taken, secured and held. Then an

administration--McChrystal's ``government in a box''--should

be imposed upon it. Despite all the hoopla about the

brilliant new strategy, it was hardly new. In fact it was a

replay of the strategy the French General Lyautey called the

tache d'huile (the oil spot) and applied in Indochina over a

century ago. We also tried it in Vietnam, renaming it the

``ink spot.'' The hope was that the ``spot,'' once fixed on

the Marja, would smudge into adjoining areas and so

eventually spread across the country. Clear and simple, but

unfortunately, like so much in counterinsurgency theory, it

never seemed to work.

Petraeus's counterinsurgency theory also illuminated how to

create the ``spot.'' What was required was a commitment of

forces in proportion to native population size. Various

numbers have been put forth but a common number is about one

soldier for each 50 inhabitants. Marja was the area chosen

for the ``spot.'' The people living there, after all, were

farmers, wedded to the land, and so should be more tractable

than the wild warriors along the tribal frontier. Moreover,

it was the place where the first significant American aid

program, the Helmand Valley Authority, had been undertaken in

the late 1950s. So, if an area were to be favorable to

Americans, it ought to be Marja. But, to take no chances,

General McChrystal decided to employ overwhelming force. So,

what is particularly stunning about the failure in Marja is

that the force applied was not the counterinsurgency model of

1 soldier for each 50 inhabitants but nearly 1 soldier for

each 2 inhabitants.

If these numbers were projected to the planned offensive in

the much larger city of Kandahar, which has a population of

nearly 500,000, they become impossibly large. Such an attack

would require at least four times as many U.S. and NATO as in

Marja. That is virtually the entire fighting force and what

little control over Marja and most other areas, perhaps

even the capital, Kabul, that now exists would have to be

given up or else large numbers of additional American

troops would have to be engaged. Moreover, in response to

such an attack, it would be possible for the insurgents

also to redeploy so the numbers would again increase.

The more fundamental question, which needs to be addressed,

is why didn't this relatively massive introduction of troops

with awesome and overwhelming fire power succeed. Just a few

days before he was fired, as I have mentioned, General

McChrystal posed, but could not answer, that question. I hope

President Obama is also pondering it.

For those who read history, the answer is evident. But, as

I have quoted in my book Understanding Iraq, the great German

philosopher, Georg Willhelm Friedrich Hegel, despaired that

``Peoples and governments never have learned anything from

history or acted on principles deduced from it'' and,

therefore, as the American philosopher George Santayana

warned us, not having learned from history, we are doomed to

repeat it. Indeed, it seems that each generation of Americans

has to start all over again to find the answers. Who among

our leaders and certainly among college students now really

remembers Vietnam? So, consider these simple facts:

The first fact, whether we like it or not, is that nearly

everyone in the world has a deep aversion to foreigners on

his land. As far as we know, this feeling goes back to the

very beginning of our species because we are territorial

animals. Dedication to the protection of homeland permeates

history. And the sentiment has never died out. Today we call

it nationalism. Nationalism in various guises is the most

powerful political idea of our times. Protecting land,

culture, religion and people from foreigners is the central

issue in insurgency. The former head of the Pakistani

intelligence service, who has had unparallelled experience

with the Taliban over many years, advised us that we should

open our eyes to seeing the Afghan insurgents as they see

themselves: ``They are freedom fighters fighting for their

country and fighting for their faith.'' We agreed when they

were fighting the Russians; now, when many of the same people

are fighting us, we see them only as terrorists. That label

does not help us understand why they are fighting.

Instead of asking why they are fighting, counterinsurgents

think they can overcome aversion to foreign invaders by

``renting'' the natives. In Marja, we not only put in a large

military contingent but, as Rajiv Chandrasekaran reported

this month in The Washington Post, we offered to employ

virtually the entire adult population, some 10,000 people.

Unquestionably such efforts do persuade some of the people

for some of the time. But not all or permanently. In Marja,

only 1,200 people signed up for the jobs we offered.

Why so few? After all, the Afghans, as I wrote in an

earlier article, have suffered through virtually continuous

war for thirty years. Many are wounded or sick, with some

even on the brink of starvation. More than one in three

subsists on the equivalent of less than 45 cents a day,

almost one in two lives below the poverty line and more than

one in two preschool children is stunted because of

malnutrition. They are the lucky ones; one in five dies

before the age of 5. Obviously, the Afghans need help, so we

think they should welcome our efforts to aid them. But Marja

shows that they do not. Nation-wide, independent observers

have found that attitude is common: most do not want us

there, even giving them aid. And even those who do are fairly

easily dissuaded by the insurgents.

Threats or attacks by the insurgents have brought them into

our gunsights. In Afghanistan, as in Vietnam, we have tried

to so weaken the insurgents that they cannot effectively

block our programs. Our ``body counts'' in Vietnam showed

that we killed off the entire Viet Minh several times over

and today we are told that the ranks of the Taliban have been

severely depleted. But, because the motivation that energized

the first group of insurgents is widely shared, and is

usually intensified by foreign military action, which by its

nature is regarded by many of the natives as unjustified and

brutal, new insurgents as well as supporters of the

temporarily evicted insurgents will emerge from among the

inhabitants of the oil/ink spot. Outsiders may have come in,

but, according to U.S. military intelligence about three in

four insurgents fight within five miles of their homes. They

were ``home'' and taking up arms within a month in Marja.

Indeed, the campaign may have been, to use that cumbersome

locution of governmentese, ``counter-productive.'' According

to the former British counter-terrorism chief and current

head of the U.N. monitoring mission, Richard Barnett, as

cited in The Guardian/The Observer last week, ``Attempts by

British and American forces to expand their control over

Afghan territory over the past 12 months have been counter-

productive and led to a worsening security situation.''

The second fact is that those insurgents who don't get

killed are the ones who have learned three simple ways to

defeat the counterinsurgents.

The first of these ways to defeat counterinsurgents is to

use appropriate tactics--never stand and fight. Insurgents

can see that their enemies outgun, and usually far out-

number, them so they should hit and run--lay mines, ambush

patrols, disrupt logistics but never get caught. Drawing on a

Kenyan fable, this has been termed ``the war of the flea and

the lion.'' The flea bites and jumps away. The powerful lion

swats, occasionally hits, but eventually tires and moves

away. Lions don't defeat fleas.

The second way insurgents can defeat the counterinsurgent

is a form of jujitsu--using his strength against him. His

strength is his superiority in weapons. So the insurgent

seeks to incite him to use them. Inevitably, caught in the

middle, the people--who are after all the ``spoil'' in

insurgency warfare--get hurt. And when they get hurt, they

naturally come to hate those who fire the weapons. In

Vietnam, insurgents would sometimes enter a ``neutral''

village, shoot at an American airplane and then steal away.

The attacked airplane would call in troops or gunships. The

villagers would suffer and would be confirmed in their hatred

of the Americans. It was brutal but very effective.

Counterinsurgents think they can avoid this problem by

withholding as much as possible of their lethal power. But

doing so is very difficult. Their soldiers also get hurt and

angry. And they come to hate the locals--wogs, gooks, rag

heads, untermenschen--who appear to them dirty, slovenly,

corrupt and cowardly. No one can be trusted when even

children act as spies or carry bombs. Soldiers make bad

neighbors to civilians in the best of circumstances and

insurgency is not one of those circumstances. As I have

pointed out in my book, The Birth of America, it was the

presence of even superbly disciplined British troops in

Boston that touched off the American Revolution.

The third way insurgents can defeat invaders is by

destroying their local puppets. Ruling another country is, of

course, expensive and difficult so foreigners have almost

always and everywhere enrolled willing natives to help. In

the American Revolution we called those people ``the

Loyalists.'' In Vietnam, they were the government of the

South. In Afghanistan they are the ``Kabul government.''

So the insurgents regard collaborators--``Quislings'' as we

called them in the Second World War--as their prime target.

In America, the colonists threatened, tarred and feathered,

lashed, imprisoned, hanged or drove away tens of thousands of

the Loyalists. In Vietnam, French police records show

that in the 1950s, the Viet Minh virtually wiped out the

administration of the southern government, murdering

policemen, postmen, judges and other civil servants as well

as teachers and doctors. And today in Afghanistan, as Rod

Nordland reported in The New York Times on June 10, ``The

Taliban have been stepping up a campaign of assassinations in

recent months against officials and anyone else associated

with local government in an attempt to undermine

counterinsurgency operations in the south.''

One Afghan told Nordland, ``I know many people who are

afraid to take jobs with the government or the aid community

now. It's a very effective and very efficient campaign; the

armed opposition are using this tool because it works.'' Even

from a nationalist perspective, this is very rough justice.

But many Afghans appear to believe it is both ``justice'' and

Afghan justice.

To validate their actions, the insurgents must themselves

supply what the foreigners and their local supporters offer.

We have full records of how insurgents did this in Yugoslavia

and Greece during the Second World War. The records are not

so open for Afghanistan as yet. But, we know from a study by

the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) that the

Taliban has set up a ``widespread paramilitary shadow

government . . . in a majority of Afghanistan's 34

provinces.''

One of the things these shadow governments do is administer

the law. For years, I have read reports contrasting what

happens in a government court and a Taliban court. In the

government court, cases languish for months or years while

bribes are collected. A U.N. study found earlier this year

that officials shake down their fellow citizens for an amount

that is nearly a quarter of the country's gross domestic

product. In a Taliban court, there is no bribery and no

delay: Islamic law as defined by Afghan custom is immediate.

From our point of view, this too is very rough justice, if

justice at all, but in insurgencies, people appear willing to

put aside the niceties of peaceful life. In our Revolution we

did too.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of the McGovern- Obey-Jones amendment. Quite simply, all this amendment does is make sure that the President and the Congress be accountable to the American people, our troops, and their families about what our policy in Afghanistan is going to be from July 2011 onward.

At this time I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey), chairman of the Appropriations Committee.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Jones), a cosponsor of this amendment.

Mr. Speaker, I would like to insert into the Record two articles that appeared in the Washington Post. One is entitled, ``U.S. Indirectly Paying Afghan Warlords as Part of Security Contract.'' The other is entitled, ``U.S. Officials Say Karzai Aides are Derailing Corruption Cases Involving Elite.''

[From the Washington Post, June 22, 2010]

U.S. Indirectly Paying Afghan Warlords as Part of Security Contract

(By Karen DeYoung)

The U.S. military is funding a massive protection racket in

Afghanistan, indirectly paying tens of millions of dollars to

warlords, corrupt public officials and the Taliban to ensure

safe passage of its supply convoys throughout the country,

according to congressional investigators.

The security arrangements, part of a $2.16 billion

transport contract, violate laws on the use of private

contractors, as well as Defense Department regulations, and

``dramatically undermine'' larger U.S. objectives of

curtailing corruption and strengthening effective governance

in Afghanistan, a report released late Monday said.

The report describes a Defense Department that is well

aware that some of the money paid to contractors winds up in

the hands of warlords and insurgents. Military logisticians

on the ground are focused on getting supplies where they are

needed and have ``virtually no understanding of how security

is actually provided'' for the local truck convoys that

transport more than 70 percent of all goods and materials

used by U.S. troops. Alarms raised by prime trucking

contractors were met by the military ``with indifference and

inaction,'' the report said.

``The findings of this report range from sobering to

shocking,'' Rep. John Tierney (D-Mass.) wrote in an

introduction to the 79-page report, titled ``Warlord, Inc.,

Extortion and Corruption Along the U.S. Supply Chain in

Afghanistan.''

The report comes as the number of U.S. casualties is rising

in the Afghan war, and public and congressional support is

declining. The administration has been on the defensive in

recent weeks, insisting that the slow progress of anti-

Taliban offensives in Helmand province and the city of

Kandahar does not mean that more time is needed to assess

whether President Obama's strategy is working.

``I think it's much too early to draw a negative

conclusion,'' said a senior administration official, speaking

on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal

deliberations. ``I think there's more positive than negative.

We're heading toward a year-end assessment, which will be a

big one for us.'' The review was set when Obama announced in

December that he would send an additional 30,000 troops to

Afghanistan and begin to withdraw them in July 2011.

Tierney is chairman of the national security subcommittee

of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform,

whose majority staff spent six months preparing the report. A

proponent of a smaller U.S. military footprint in Afghanistan

and targeted attacks on insurgents, Tierney said in an

interview Monday that he hopes the report will help members

of Congress ``analyze whether they think this is the most

effective way to go about dealing with terrorism. Or the most

cost-effective way.''

The report's conclusions will be introduced at a hearing

Tuesday at which senior military and defense officials are

scheduled to testify. The report says that all evidence and

findings were made available to Republicans on the

subcommittee. A spokesman for Rep. Jeff Flake (Ariz.), the

ranking Republican, said the lawmaker will not comment until

he has seen the entire report.

In testimony shortly after Obama's strategy announcement,

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said that ``much of

the corruption'' in Afghanistan has been fueled by billions

of dollars' worth of foreign money spent there, ``and one of

the major sources of funding for the Taliban is the

protection money.''

Military officials said that they have begun several

corruption investigations in Afghanistan and that a task

force has been named, headed by Navy Rear Adm. Kathleen

Dussault, director of logistics and supply operations for the

chief of naval operations and former head of the Baghdad-

based joint contracting command for Iraq and Afghanistan.

Rear Adm. Gregory J. Smith, communications chief for U.S.

and NATO forces in Kabul, said that the entire Tierney report

has not been examined but that Dussault will be ``reviewing

every aspect of our contracting process and recommending

changes to avoid our contribution to what is arguably a major

source of revenue that feeds the cycle of corruption.''

The U.S. military imports virtually everything it uses in

Afghanistan--including food, water, fuel and ammunition--by

road through Pakistan or Central Asia to distribution hubs at

Bagram air base north of Kabul and a similar base outside

Kandahar. From there, containers are loaded onto trucks

provided by Afghan contractors under the $2.16 billion Host

Nation Trucking contract. Unlike in the Iraq war, the

security and vast majority of the trucks are provided by

Afghans, a difference that Army Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal,

the top U.S. and NATO commander in Afghanistan, has praised

as promoting local entrepreneurship.

The trucks distribute the material to more than 200 U.S.

military outposts across Afghanistan, most of them in the

southern and eastern parts of the country where roads are

largely controlled by warlords and insurgent groups.

The report found no direct evidence of payoffs to the

Taliban, but one trucking program manager estimated that $1.6

million to $2 million per week goes to the insurgents.

Most of the eight companies approved for the contract are

Afghan-owned, but they serve largely as brokers for

subcontractors that provide the trucks and security for the

convoys, which often contain hundreds of vehicles. According

to the congressional report, the U.S. officers charged with

supervising the deliveries never travel off bases to

determine how the system works or to ensure that U.S. laws

and regulations are followed.

The report describes a system in which subcontractors--most

of them well-known warlords who maintain their own militias--

charge $1,500 to $15,000 per truck to supply guards and help

secure safe passage through territory they control. The most

powerful of them, known as Commander Ruhullah, controls

passage along Highway One, the principal route between Kabul

and Kandahar, under the auspices of Watan Risk Management, a

company owned by two of Afghan President Hamid Karzai's

cousins.

Overall management of who wins the security subcontracts,

it said, is often controlled by local political powerbrokers

such as Karzai's half brother, Ahmed Wali Karzai, head of the

Kandahar provincial council.

Relatively unknown before U.S. forces arrived in

Afghanistan in fall 2001, Ruhullah is ``prototypical of a new

class of warlord in Afghanistan,'' the report said. Unlike

more traditional warlords, he has no political aspirations or

tribal standing but ``commands a small army of over 600

guards.''

The ``single largest security provider for the U.S. supply

chain in Afghanistan,'' Ruhullah ``readily admits to bribing

governors, police chiefs and army generals,'' the report

said. In a meeting with congressional investigators in Dubai,

he complained about ``the high cost of ammunition in

Afghanistan--he says he spends $1.5 million per month on

rounds for an arsenal that includes AK-47s, heavy machine

guns and RPGs,'' or rocket-propelled grenades. It added:

``Villagers along the road refer to him as `the Butcher.' ''

Despite his ``critical role,'' the report said, ``nobody

from the Department of Defense or the U.S. intelligence

community has ever met with him,'' other than special

operations forces who have twice arrested and released him,

and he ``is largely a mystery to both the U.S. government and

the contractors that employ his services.''

Defense regulations and laws promulgated following

difficulties with private security contractors in Iraq limit

the weaponry that contractors can use and require detailed

incident reports every time shots are fired. But such reports

are rarely, if ever, filed, investigators said.

Another trucking contractor described a ``symbiotic''

relationship between security providers such as Ruhullah and

the Taliban, whose fighters operate in the same space, and

said that the Taliban is paid not to cause trouble for the

convoys. ``Many firefights are really negotiations over the

fee,'' the report said.

Among its recommendations, the report calls on the military

to establish ``a direct line of authority and accountability

over the private security companies that guard the supply

chain'' and to provide ``the personnel and resources required

to manage and oversee its trucking and security contracts in

Afghanistan.''

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

I yield myself the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, at this moment we have close to 100,000 U.S. servicemen and -women deployed in Afghanistan. The war has raged for nearly 9 years, and our mission has changed at least that many times. We have lost over 1,000 of our brave soldiers. Thousands more have been wounded. We are spending hundreds of billions of dollars in borrowed money. In 9 years, neither George W. Bush nor Barack Obama nor this Congress has seen fit to pay for the war. That's a burden we are placing on our children and our grandchildren.

All of us, every single one of us, Republicans and Democrats alike, are dedicated to defeating al Qaeda and holding to account those who committed the horrible atrocities on September 11.

What we are proposing today in no way lessens our commitment to that fight, but our current policy in Afghanistan is deeply flawed. We are getting sucked deeper and deeper and deeper into a war with no clear end. It is a war that will continue to claim the lives of our soldiers; it is a war that will continue to bankrupt us, and it is a war that will not enhance our national security.

My friends, we can no longer go along to get along. All of us have a responsibility to make sure that we are doing the right thing. It's not just the President's war. It's our war, too. We are the ones who voted to put our soldiers in harm's way, and we are the ones who keep funding it. My friends on the other side of the aisle who question, Why are we asking questions? Why don't we just rubber-stamp what the Senate did or rubber-stamp what the President sent us? Well, the reason why we shouldn't do that is because that's not our job. We're supposed to deliberate, and we are supposed to ask questions, and we're supposed to figure out whether we're doing the right thing. They are our constituents, our family members who are in harm's way.

We need to let this administration know that we want a way out. We want a plan. That's not a radical idea. We want a plan. We want an exit strategy. For the last 30 years, we said, Never again will we commit our Armed Forces without a clearly defined mission, and that means a mission with a beginning, a middle, a transition period, and an end. Well, that's all we're asking for today, a clearly defined mission. What's the plan?

We are dealing with the worst economy since the Great Depression. Our citizens, our constituents are hurting, yet we're told that we cannot afford to extend unemployment benefits to out-of-work Americans because we cannot afford it. We are told we can't help more families afford a college education or rebuild our roads and our bridges. But when it comes to supporting a corrupt, incompetent Karzai government, we're supposed to be a bottomless pit. Don't ask any questions. Just give them all the money they want. Look the other way. That's not right. That's not our job. I don't have all the answers, but I do know that it makes absolutely no sense to quietly endure the status quo.

Ending a war is not easy. It requires courage and it demands action. What this amendment requests is action, a strong signal to the administration that we want a plan. It also signals the Congress will no longer just sit back and hope for the best.

To those who say that asking the Afghan Government to stand up and take responsibility is somehow a bad idea, I would remind them that when we signaled to Iraq that we had a withdrawal plan, officials there actually began to act like a real government.

Ensuring that the President gives us a plan by next April so we can figure out by July what to do with the money slated for the war is not too much to ask. We require, we deserve, and we should demand the information we need to do our jobs.

Let me just close with this: There is a small sliver of America that is directly impacted by this war in Iraq, and those are the people who are fighting the war and who have family members who are fighting the war. The rest of us are asked to do nothing, absolutely nothing. We are not even asked to pay for it, hundreds of billions of dollars in borrowed money. Well, the least we could do for these brave men and women whom we have put in harm's way is debate this issue to make sure we're getting it right, to make sure we're not sending these people on a mission that commits itself to a war with no end. That is what we're asking for here today, a clearly defined mission. I ask all of you, every one of us here, to reengage in this policy.

This issue has been on the back burner for too long. We're at war. Our constituents are dying. Each and every day we read about more people who are killed in Afghanistan. We have an obligation to do better. This policy is deeply flawed. We need a way out, and I ask all of you today to vote for the McGovern-Obey-Jones amendment.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Announcement by the Speaker Pro Tempore

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 5 minutes.

Mr. Speaker, let me begin by making a personal observation. This evening we are embarking upon the most irresponsible, convoluted legislative exercise I have seen in my many years in this body. My dear friend and former chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee, the late Senator Robert Byrd, would be embarrassed by this process, or the lack of process, because it greatly diminishes the integrity of this Congress he loved so dearly. I can

hear Senator Byrd's voice clear as day. ``Shame, shame,'' he would say.

It was 35 days ago that the full Appropriations Committee was scheduled to mark up the fiscal year 2010 emergency supplemental before us. Republicans and Democrats alike had a number of amendments they planned to offer to make the package a better piece of legislation. But, for reasons that remain a mystery to everyone, that markup was abruptly canceled 3 hours before it was to occur. Tonight, the House is considering legislation written by Chairman Obey and the majority leadership with absolutely no input from rank-and-file Members on either side of the aisle.

The only legislation we should be considering today is a clean emergency supplemental funding bill to provide critical funding for our troops; foreign assistance and economic support for Afghanistan, as well as Pakistan and Iraq, should be included; FEMA disaster assistance; oil spill cleanup assistance; and relief for Haiti. Many other funding and policy items could easily be addressed through our regular order spending bills.

Just hours ago we were sent a package of six different amendments and two resolutions, totaling 153 pages. Included in that package were efforts to cut off troop funding, a timetable for troop withdrawal from Afghanistan, billions in additional spending on domestic programs, a variety of complex legal settlements piggybacked into a billion-dollar summer youth program, and a deem-and-scheme resolution that proposes spending $31 billion more in discretionary spending in FY 2011 than was spent in FY 2010. It's worth noting that only in Washington could Chairman Obey and Chairman Spratt characterize this $31 billion increase as a cut.

I am deeply concerned about the impact these amendments could have on our ability to approve a bill for the President's signature prior to the Fourth of July recess. The failure of this body to approve critical funds for our troops before the Fourth of July would send absolutely the wrong message to our men and women in uniform, and delay needed money for other emergency needs.

Further, this inaction would force our commanders to begin making budget decisions that could compromise our military readiness. It would also signal to our enemies a lack of resolve that could undermine our mission in several very dangerous areas of the world.

The fact that we are sitting here in July without this spending bill passed and signed into law is, frankly, astonishing to me. The President submitted his request in February of this year. The Senate passed its war funding measure on May 27, and indicated that it was ready to conference the bill with the House. The House never marked up this supplemental or had an opportunity to amend it in any way. And yet, here we are 35 days and tens of billions of dollars of spending later, and we still have not approved funding for our troops.

Yesterday, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office released a long-term budget outlook. CBO noted that our national debt equaled 40 percent of our country's economic input in 2008. By the end of this year, the Federal debt will represent 62 percent of our national economy. That's a 22 percent increase in the level of debt in just 2 years. The additional unrequested nontroop-related spending the House is considering today would drive that debt even higher.

I recognize there are tremendous political pressures that come to bear on majority Members when it comes to opposing measures sponsored by their own party. Today my request to the Members of the majority is quite simple: Please think long and hard about the consequences of supporting anything beyond the clean Senate supplemental spending bill.

I yield myself 30 additional seconds.

I urge my colleagues on both sides, particularly my friends in the majority who are truly concerned about the ever-escalating rates of growth of spending, to reject these amendments and reject this Fourth of July spending spree. Let's support our troops, pass a clean version of the supplemental on a broad, bipartisan basis, and get this package to the Commander in Chief. Our men and women in harm's way deserve no less.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I'm pleased to yield 3 minutes to our leader of the Homeland Security Committee, the gentleman from Kentucky (Mr. Rogers).

Mr. Speaker, I am proud to yield 2 minutes to the ranking member of the Judiciary Committee, Mr. Smith of Texas.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Utah (Mr. Bishop).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to my colleague from the Appropriations Committee, the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Frelinghuysen).

I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, it is important for all of my colleagues, especially those on the majority side of the aisle, to make note of the fact that this is the President's supplemental request. This amendment adds almost $17 billion in new domestic spending to a critical war funding and disaster assistance bill, most of which was never formally requested by the Commander in Chief and none of which is included in the Senate-passed bill. These bloated domestic spending add-ons include those that either are unnecessary spending or should be considered as part of the regular fiscal year 2011 appropriations process.

For example, the amendment includes language under the Teacher Jobs Fund that singles out Texas by requiring that Texas maintain a higher level of State support for elementary and secondary education and higher education spending than any other State. It adds $4.95 billion for Pell Grants that would normally be and should be funded in the fiscal year 2011 Labor, Health, and Human Services bill, as has been the practice in previous years.

There is $538 million to game the fiscal year 2011 appropriations process by forward-funding certain activities now with fiscal year 2010 funds, thereby freeing up money to spend on other activities in 2011. This includes giving the IRS an additional $245 million now to ramp up its enforcement.

I rise to oppose the Lee amendment to essentially cut off the funding for our troops in Afghanistan.

I am very proud to yield 5 minutes to my colleague, our leader on the Defense Subcommittee, the gentleman from Florida, Bill Young.

Mr. Speaker, I am proud to yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Missouri, Ike Skelton, the chairman of the House authorizing committee on national security or defense.

Mr. Speaker, I am proud to yield 3 minutes to Ike Skelton's partner, the gentleman from California, Buck McKeon, who is the ranking member of the Armed Services Committee.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Pence).

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

Mr. Speaker, how much time do we have on each side?

I yield myself the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, let me begin by reminding the Members that this supplemental originally was sent to us by our Commander in Chief, the President of the United States, Barack Obama.

I understand the concerns about the war in Afghanistan. I have similar concerns, especially following the recent turmoil regarding command changes. But I also have full faith and confidence in our brave and selfless men and women fighting over there.

The President knows that war is tough and a dirty business. But our forces, although tired, are eager for the opportunity to succeed and more than capable of doing so.

I have in my hand a Statement of Administration Policy from our Commander in Chief, Barack Obama. In it, his advisers suggest, if this amendment is a part of the bill, that they will be recommending to the President that he veto this bill.

Indeed, it is time for us to recognize that the war on terror is very real. The challenge in Afghanistan is supported by the President because he recognizes it's very real, and it's one of the bases of operation for their activities. In fact, I believe that we have to let conditions on the ground dictate the process, as General Petraeus just testified this week, even if those conditions require forces to stay past the President's July 11 withdrawal date.

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

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to my colleague from New Jersey, Rodney Frelinghuysen.

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

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. LaTourette).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 additional minute to the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. LaTourette).

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

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

Mr. Speaker, I think it is very important for the Members to one more time remind themselves, ourselves, that this is the President's supplemental and it is designed to provide needed funding for our troops who are representing our interests and fighting for freedom in Afghanistan.

I think it is very important that this amendment goes on to restrict year 2011 funds from being used in a manner inconsistent with a July 2011 troop withdrawal unless expressly provided for and by a joint resolution of the Congress. The President of the United States has indicated in his policy administration statement coming from his chief advisers that if the amendments we have been considering this evening are a part of this bill, those chief advisers will recommend to the President that he veto this funding measure.

It is very apparent that the other body tomorrow is leaving town, if they haven't already left town. Indeed, amendments to this bill will cause this bill to involve a considerable delay for funding for our troops almost regardless. As I argued under the previous administration, we should not tie the President's hands while he is executing his duties as Commander in Chief, perhaps the most solemn of the Commander in Chief's responsibilities. This amendment would do just that.

Further, just this week the President's new commanding general testified that the July 11th date is not a race for the exits. Rather, that date will begin a condition-based process. He further left open the option of recommending changes or delays in the current plan.

The amendment further attempts to encumber future year funds, which is not only impractical, but the conditions on which those funds would be encumbered are questionable.

Honestly, I fail to see the logic in attempting to fence future year funds, and I can't help but wonder why try to do this now when the fiscal year 2011 process is working its way through the committee. The war on terror, Mr. Speaker, continues to be very real. Our troops certainly understand it, even if our majority leadership does not understand it.

Of course, I want our troops home as quickly as possible, but tying the hands of the Commander in Chief and the commanders executing the war is irresponsible and dangerous.

Mr. Speaker, for that reason, I have a unanimous consent request.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to take from the Speaker's table the bill, H.R. 4899, with the Senate amendments thereto, and concur in the Senate amendments.

Mr. Speaker, I am very surprised there was an objection to that recommendation. After all, we are just trying to find some way to get the President's original recommendations up here so that the Commander in Chief can support our troops so that they can come home as quickly as possible. In Afghanistan, whether we believe it or not, the war on al Qaeda involves our future freedom, and certainly it would have a significant impact upon peace in the world.

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

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Georgia, Jack Kingston.

Mr. Speaker, I yield the gentleman 1 additional minute.

Mr. Speaker, I have no further requests for time; so I will close.

Mr. Speaker, I think you know that as a result of your interpreting existing policy relative to the unanimous consent requests on three different occasions in an effort to get the original package here before the body so they could vote up or down on H.R. 4899, I know that I could speak for my own leadership, they certainly would agree to this unanimous consent request. It would appear the leadership on the other side, perhaps of the committee, I can't speak for the Speaker, of course, but apparently the other side does not want us to have that package before the body.

Mr. Speaker, it is critical for us to remind ourselves continually in the weeks and months ahead, the war on terror is very real. America has been challenged at home and continues to be challenged abroad. The men and women that our Commander in Chief have chosen to send to Afghanistan are in need for supplemental funding. To have us essentially water down those proposals by way of the amendments that have been before us is absolutely unbelievable to me. If the public could only know what the people's body is doing tonight to not just our people here at home but our people overseas as well, I believe they'd essentially make a decision that they ought to change the entire Congress.

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

Mr. Speaker, I hope that we will have an opportunity to do something we have not been able to do, and that is to debate the Afghan war and the direction that this war is taking and the impact on our men and women on the front lines. I particularly want to say to the families how much we appreciate the sacrifice that you've made as these men and women stand on the front lines of Afghanistan. But I think we're long overdue for a major debate that has to do with that direction.

I support this underlying rule for the purpose of allowing us to have this debate, but also that it provides, on the domestic spending, crucial issues.

Pell Grants will be provided for in $4.95 billion; border security that impacts the northern and southern border so that we can stand as we do comprehensive immigration reform and assure the American people that we will secure our boarders.

In the most catastrophic oil spill from the region that I come, the tsunami of oil spills, we are taking care of the people by providing $304 million for the gulf coast oil spill, including moneys for unemployment assistance.

Then, coming from the region I belong to, as well, we had a tragedy at Fort Hood, and we are now rebuilding the Fort Hood processing center that saw a terrible loss of life because of terrorism.

FEMA disaster. This is the most vigorous season that you could have ever imagined that is to be expected in hurricanes, and we know, among other disasters, we'll have the money here.

But we're also going to say to the youth of America when we vote on this, we're providing money for summer youth jobs, $1 billion in youth jobs that we in the Congressional Black Caucus--and many Members joined us--are fighting for. This is a crucial step forward. We're providing for black farmers who have been discriminated against over the years.

And then, as I have indicated, we will have an opportunity to question not the men and women in Afghanistan or Iraq, but to question whether or not it is wise to focus on insurgents versus terrorists so that we send men and

women into harm's way without a discerning goal.

I thank the gentleman.

I will tell you, ladies and gentlemen, when you begin to fight those who are classified as your neighbors--and I don't use that term loosely. The Taliban live in Afghanistan. And whenever you determine to fight those individuals, it makes it very difficult to win this war.

The gentleman has his own time. I appreciate it. I am concluding.

And finally, let me say that I offered an amendment to maintain NASA human space exploration and the funding as it was. I look forward to working with this Congress and the Democrats to make sure that happens.

I thank the gentleman.

And let me publicly apologize to the gentleman. I was rushing. I wanted to make sure I mentioned NASA. But let me say that, yes, I am aware, and I am enthusiastic about that language. And I thank the leadership for it because, in fact, it is celebrated and supported by 40-plus school districts in Texas to prevent the Governor of the State of Texas from misusing education dollars, as they have been misused before. This is money that will be effectively used for the schoolchildren of the State of Texas. And I thank the gentleman.

I yield to the gentleman.

Reclaiming my time, what I'm aware of is that this language is supported by at least 40 school districts that support the money being able to come directly to them or not being used if it is not used for education. Additionally, this language only includes education funding not stimulus dollars. So it will not artificially increase any costs to the taxpayers. The school districts will benefit from the Governor having to use federal education dollars for education.

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to come before you today in support of H. Res. 1500, a rule providing for H.R. 4899, the ``Supplemental Appropriations Act of 2010.''--a bill that will help create jobs for Americans and provide assistance in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Haiti.

I want to thank Chairman Obey and Ranking Member Lewis for their leadership on this timely legislation. Clearly, this is an important bill and must be only amended with items that are essential to provide the necessary assistance this country so greatly needs.

H.R. 4899 will provide funding for the needs of the American people, from national security, housing, employment, health, to education. I fully support these efforts and want to stress that we must continue to provide policies and funding that ensure that the United States remains a global leader in science and technology, including space exploration, which not only results in knowledge-building, but also in hundreds of thousands of jobs throughout the nation.

Mr. Speaker, this supplemental appropriation is quite different from any other supplemental appropriation that members of this body will ever consider. This supplemental appropriations bill provides over $37.47 billion to support our troops, over $24 billion to keep teachers, firefighters and law enforcement personnel on the job while states continue to recover from the recession; over $13 billion for Vietnam veterans and survivors exposed to Agent Orange; $5.7 billion for PELL; $2.8 billion for Haiti; $677 million border security; $275 million for the Gulf Coast oil spill including unemployment benefits program and unemployment assistance related to the oil spill and an oil spill relief employment program that are underway for the self-employed businessman and women who were greatly impacted by the Gulf Coast oil spill.

No price is too great to pay, Mr. Speaker, when it comes to doing what is necessary to aid our country. This bill must only be amended with key items that are critical to adequately address this nation's needs. I am therefore, offering several amendments to H.R. 4899.

Mr. Speaker, I thank you for the opportunity to explain my amendment to H.R. 4899--``Supplemental Appropriations Act 2010.'' H.R. 4899 will provide funding for the needs of the American people, from national security, housing, employment, health, to education. I fully support these efforts and want to stress that we must continue to provide policies and funding that ensure that the United States remains a global leader in science and technology, including space exploration, which not only results in knowledge- building but also in hundreds of thousands of jobs throughout the nation.

My amendment would ensure: all managed funding for the National Aeronautics Space Administration (NASA) NASA Constellation programs will be maintained through fiscal year 2015 with the assumption that the Constellation program will continue: (2) U.S. human space flight systems shall be lead by the U.S. government to ensure crew safety and to ensure skill, capabilities and institutional knowledge attributable to NASA and ISS can be retained by the U.S. for the appropriate time; (3) strengthen partnerships between universities and NASA centers; and (4) ensure a protocol for commercial human space flight utilization shall be established.

The President's proposed FY2011 budget eliminates funding for a portion of the Constellation Program which includes the Orion Crew Capsule, the Altair Lunar Lander, and the Ares I and Ares V rockets.

Earlier this year, I introduced H. Res. 1150, ``Designating the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) as a national security Interest and Asset,'' and stating findings that the elimination of funding for the NASA Constellation program in the President's proposed FY 2011 budget presents national security concerns.

It is critical that managed funding for the NASA Constellation programs is maintained through fiscal year 2015 as:

1. Elimination of the Constellation programs will present Homeland Security implications for Cyberspace, critical infrastructure, and Intelligence community of the United States;

2. Elimination of the Constellation programs will compromise the effectiveness of the International Space Station as it relates to the strategic importance of space station research, and intelligence; and

3. Continuation of NASA's Constellation program is crucial to maintaining thousands of American jobs and the U.S.'s leadership role and technological edge as well as securing valuable knowledge that improves national security, climate, and research in science and medicine.

International Leadership and Technological Competitive Edge

Eliminating the Constellation upon retirement of the Space Shuttle will diminish the nation's international leadership role and efforts to advance scientific research in space. The United States will for the first time, since its space program began, be without a human space flight program.

Additionally, transferring funds from the Constellation program to the development of commercial space programs to carry a human crew into space is taking a chance on an unproven quantity and is an unnecessary and unreasonable risk this country must not take at this time. It is more prudent to establish a protocol for commercial human space flight utilization at this time.

It will take years for the commercial spaceflight industry to get up to speed to reach the level of competence that exists at NASA today. Our government has already invested literally years and billions of dollars into this program. We should build upon these investments and not abandon them. Our country can support the commercial spaceflight industry, but not at the expense of our human spaceflight program, which for years has inspired future generations and driven technology that enhances our quality of life.

The retirement of the Space Shuttles this year will leave the United States vulnerable and dependent upon Russia to put U.S. astronauts in orbit without the Constellation program. In May of last year when it became clear the U.S. had no one else to turn to, Russia raised its prices from $48 to $51 million per launch for each astronaut.

In addition, it is important for us to remember that the Constellation program is not just about going to the moon, as the U.S. has a commitment to the International Space Station (ISS). With the Space Shuttles being retired this September, the Constellation is the only system under development that will give NASA the future capability to launch crews to and retrieve them from the ISS. Decreasing the use of the International Space Station would impact the ability to sustain its systems and physical infrastructure.

National Security and Homeland Security

The Congress should recognize the policy outlined in section 501(a) of the National Aeronautics and Space Authorization Act of 2005 (42 U.S.C. 16761(a), that the United States shall maintain an uninterrupted capability for human space flight and operations in low-earth orbit, and beyond, as an essential element of national security and the ability to ensure continued United States participation and leadership in the exploration of space.

The human space flight program should be funded to continue use of the International Space Station to support the agency and other Federal, commercial, and academic research and technology testing needs. NASA conducts aeronautics research to address aviation safety, air traffic control, noise and, emissions reductions and fuel efficiency.

NASA's contribution to our knowledge of air and water supports has improved decision making for natural resource management and

emergency response, thus enabling us to better respond to future homeland security threats.

Knowledge of Earth's water cycle is a critical first step in protecting our water supply; water flows over the Earth's surface in oceans, lakes, and streams, and is particularly vulnerable to attack.

NASA sensors provide a wealth of information about the water cycle, and contribute to improving our ability to monitor water resources and water quality from space. We must also protect the quality and safety of the air we breathe; airborne contaminants can pose danger to human health; and chemical, nuclear, radiological, and biological attacks are plausible threats against which we can better protect the United States through NASA's research.

Elimination of the Constellation program will present homeland security implications for cyberspace, critical infrastructure, and the intelligence community of the United States. Elimination of the Constellation program will also compromise the effectiveness of the International Space Station as it relates to the strategic importance of space station research, and intelligence.

Continuation of NASA's human space flight program is crucial to improving national security, studying climate change and its effects, and research in science and medicine.

Conclusion

For all of the above reasons, it is my hope that this committee will join me in supporting efforts to maintain NASA's Constellation Program. It is through balanced policies that promote economic growth that we will continue to maintain our international leadership and technological competitive edge, and gain valuable knowledge relating to the national security of our nation. I look forward to working with all of you to ensure that we preserve a robust human space flight program in the United States.

Amendment to H.R. 4899

Offered by Ms. Jackson Lee of Texas

At the appropriate place, insert the following:

Mr. Speaker, pursuant to House Resolution 1500, I call up the bill (H.R. 4899) making emergency supplemental appropriations for disaster relief and summer jobs for the fiscal year ending September 30, 2010, and for other purposes, with the Senate amendments thereto, and offer the motion.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material on the pending legislation.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 5 minutes.

Mr. Speaker, the underlying bill presented to us by the Senate is, essentially, a bill to provide funding to continue the war activities in Afghanistan. Why, people might ask, are we trying to add this amendment to that proposal?

I would suggest the numbers tell the story. With this bill from the Senate, we will be spending, in this fiscal year, $167 billion on the war in Iraq and Afghanistan. It is obvious to any but the most obtuse that that expenditure is killing our ability to finance a recovery of our own economy.

We tried to deal with that problem in December with a $90 billion economic package. The Senate declined to act on it. We've proposed smaller packages on two occasions since then. About a month ago we offered a $23 billion package aimed primarily at trying to save teachers' jobs, teachers who otherwise are going to be laid off because of the severe economic conditions in virtually every State in the Union, except a few lucky exceptions like North Dakota and South Dakota.

We now bring before the House a bill which reflects what we've been asked to do by a great many Members. It attempts to provide a much smaller aid package to keep those teachers on the job, about $10 billion; and it contains a few other small items, including almost $5 billion in additional Pell Grants funds for some 87,000 students who are going to need them badly.

We were also asked to provide offsets, and so we have done that. We have offsets for virtually every dollar above the President's request, and those offsets are not pleasant, and they are not popular. Certainly, I don't like some of them myself. But the fact is that they are necessary if we're to provide a fiscally disciplined bill that has a chance of getting the votes to pass this House, and that's what we've done.

I think people need to ask themselves one question: Are they interested in simply standing by and allowing teachers to be fired day after day for the next 3 months all around the country, or are they willing to do something about it? I hope the answer is the latter.

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

I yield myself 1 minute.

Somehow we are being told that we are committing a mortal sin because we are trying to attach some material to the bill sent to us by the Senate. I would simply point out that just a few weeks ago, as the gentleman from Massachusetts pointed out earlier in the debate, when the defense authorization bill was on the floor only nine Republicans in this House voted for it. They felt then that another matter was evidently more important than providing passage for that bill. And yet today they criticize us because we are suggesting several additions to the appropriations bill. I find that inconsistent.

I would also point out that there are a number of high-priority national items that we are trying to add besides education funding. We are trying to provide additional funds for Pell Grants, some $5 billion. We are trying to provide $700 million more for border security, $180 million more for energy loans, $163 million more for schools on military installations, $142 million for gulf coast oil spill funding, and $16 million to build a new soldier processing center at Fort Hood.

I yield myself 30 additional seconds.

I would like to know what's wrong with any of those items.

I yield 2 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from Texas (Mr. Reyes) to explain why it's necessary to do additional funding for border security.

I yield the gentleman an additional 30 seconds.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from Texas (Mr. Edwards).

Mr. Speaker, how much time does each side have remaining?

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Price).

I yield the gentleman an additional 15 seconds.

Mr. Speaker, I yield for the purpose of making a unanimous consent request to the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Kucinich).

(Mr. KUCINICH asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks and include extraneous material.)

Mr. Speaker, let me simply say that our Republican friends are running true to form tonight. In the past 2 weeks, they have voted against funding unemployment insurance for people who have been laid off in the most excruciating recession in 70 years. Now, today, they are refusing to support a proposal which will help us stave off the laying off of well over 100,000 additional teachers around the country--something which, I think, thoughtful people would recognize would injure not just those teachers but their students and the communities in which those students are supposed to learn. There is nothing as expensive as ignorance, and ignorance is fed when you have an inadequate number of quality teachers.

Let me devote the rest of my time to something that I consider to be fairly off the point today because it had been suggested to us that the Secretary of Education is somewhat unhappy because of the offsets that we have required in order to pay for this additional funding. Let me put that into perspective.

We are trying to provide $15 billion in additional education resources to this administration--$10 billion to stave off the firing of teachers and about $5 billion to fill the shortfall that developed in the Pell program this year because of the economy.

In order to finance that, we have had to cut many programs. I don't like to do that, and the administration certainly doesn't like to see it either. But we also had to require that the Secretary's department itself take a cut that is equal to about 5 percent of the value of the additional education dollars that his department would receive.

One of the Secretary's objections, evidently, is the fact that last year in the stimulus package we provided him with a $4.3 billion pot of money to use virtually any way he wanted to stimulate educational progress in this country; $4.3 billion. He has spent a very small amount of that, about $600 million, and we decided we had to cut about $500 million out of that fund in order to finance and fully pay for the package before us. That still leaves him with $3.2 billion in money that he can spend any way his department wants.

We had a big discussion yesterday in the Agriculture Appropriations Subcommittee about whether or not it was acceptable for the Secretary of Agriculture to have a $38 million pot, yet the Secretary of Education is somehow offended because he only has $3.2 billion to pass around. I would suggest that that loose money, that untargeted money that he has available, is roughly functional to what could be called a congressional earmark. In fact, what I would call that fund is a fund that enables the Secretary to provide executive branch earmarks.

I would point out that all of the legislative-directed earmarks in the Labor-H bill last year amounted to less than $1 billion, and yet the Secretary seems to be offended by the fact that he only has three times that amount to spread around as he sees fit.

I would also point out that in the year-and-a-half they have only gotten grants out to two States, and the department has already announced that at most there will be about 15 other States that might get winning grants, which means that more than half the country will never see a dime from that money.

I would suggest that there is nothing wrong with providing the Secretary a modest amount of funds to promote educational change. God knows we need it. But to suggest that we are being unduly harsh is a joke.

With that, I urge support for this amendment.

Mr. Speaker, as was pointed out earlier, those who suggest that any efforts to add any items to what is called a military supplemental are somehow out of line are simply wrong. This legislation started out as a disaster relief bill. It went to the Senate, and they morphed it into a military supplemental, and we're simply now responding to that action.

I want to talk about the problems in Afghanistan. A year ago, I made the statement that while I was dubious about the mission in Afghanistan, I would give the President a year to see whether his policy would bear fruit. But I warned at the time that we could have the best possible policy in the world and, if we did not have the tools to implement it, it would be a failure. And I would suggest that the only two tools that we have available to use in that region of the world are the Pakistan Government and the Afghan Government; and I think it's safe to say that both of them have been less than a spectacular success, to say the least. Since then, I think it's also fair to say that events have gone downhill, especially in Afghanistan.

And in addition, since we're now spending $167 billion on these two wars, I think it's also obvious that we're having a profoundly negative effect on our ability to reinvest in and rebuild our own economy. And I think the time has come for new consideration.

Now, last December the President indicated that it was his intention to follow a policy which would begin to withdraw our troops from Afghanistan beginning in July of 2011. This amendment is meant to simply buttress that commitment, and what it says is this: It requires that in January, a new intelligence estimate be provided, and that after that is provided, the administration, by April 4, must respond to it by sending to the Congress an outline of its plans to follow the policy which they have announced which would begin to get us out of there starting in July of next year.

What this amendment also says is, if the administration decides to follow a different policy by, for instance, extending that date, then they cannot do that unless the Congress explicitly votes to allow the funds to be used for that purpose.

What I'm concerned about is this: What I can see happening is come next July, we can be told by the Pentagon, well, things are marginally better than we thought they would be and so we're going to need more time and that target date will be slipped. On the other hand, they can also say things are really going badly and so we obviously can't get out at this time. We need to have more time.

I want to know that there is a serious, determined commitment to withdraw our troops beginning in June of next year. That is more than ample time for the Pakistani Government and the Afghan Government to demonstrate whether they are capable of doing this mission or not.

I think it is obvious that we are not going to be able to rebuild our own country and make the investments we need here at home so long as we're continuing this mission in Afghanistan. And so I think this provides an orderly, rational, responsible, thoughtful way by which we can reach a conclusion to get out of that country rather than spending another 9 years before we finally face up to reality.

I thank the gentleman for the time.

Disclosure of Earmarks

The following table lists the congressional earmarks (as

defined in clause 9(e) of rule XXI) contained in the House

amendment to the Senate amendment to H.R. 4899. The House

amendment does not contain any limited tax or tariff benefits

as defined in paragraphs (f) or (g) of clause 9 of rule XXI.

Will the gentleman yield?

The gentleman seems to think the Senate bill is the original bill. The Senate amended the House bill, which was a disaster bill. If you wanted a clean vote, we would be voting on the disaster bill tonight, not the war.

I object.

Mr. Speaker, I demand a recorded vote.