Recognizing the 25th anniversary of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.

Mr. Speaker, by direction of the Committee on Rules, I call up House Resolution 522 and ask for its immediate consideration.

Mr. Speaker, for the purpose of debate only, I yield the customary 30 minutes to the gentleman from Florida, my good friend, Mr. Diaz-Balart.

All time yielded during consideration of the rule is for debate only.

General Leave

I ask unanimous consent that all Members be given 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks on House Resolution 522.

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

H. Res. 522 provides for consideration of H.R. 1886, the Pakistan Enduring Assistance and Cooperation Enhancement Act of 2009, and H.R. 2410, the Foreign Relations Authorization Act, Fiscal Years 2010 and 2011. Both bills are debatable for 1 hour each, equally divided and controlled by the Chair and ranking minority member of the Committee on Foreign Affairs.

The rule on H.R. 1886 self-executes as a manager's amendment to resolve jurisdictional concerns in the bill and legislation providing for Afghanistan-Pakistan security and prosperity enhancement. It also makes in order an amendment in the nature of a substitute authored by Ranking Member Ros-Lehtinen, which is debatable for 30 minutes.

The rule for H.R. 2410 makes in order 27 amendments listed in the Rules Committee report. Each amendment is debatable for 10 minutes, except the manager's amendment, which is debatable for 20 minutes. The rule includes a motion to recommit with or without instructions.

Mr. Speaker, the United States is faced with many challenges on the world stage. It is critical that Congress put forth the necessary funding to help rebuild our diplomatic capabilities abroad and mitigate the damage that was done under the previous administration's leadership.

H.R. 2410, the Foreign Relations Authorization Act for Fiscal Years 2010 and 2011, is the first foreign relations-related authorization bill to reflect essential democratic priorities since 1993. As such, it provides a new direction forward and vital resources to boost our diplomatic capacity, improve our relations around the world, protect our national security, and make use of America's smart power, rather than rely on the military only solutions of past Congresses and the previous administration.

H.R. 2410 and H.R. 1866, the Pakistan Enduring Assistance and Cooperation Enhancement Act of 2009, together, set forth a progressive foreign affairs agenda that emphasizes diplomatic, economic and social efforts at change, not just the use of military force.

For years the Department of State has been denied critical resources to

fulfill its core diplomatic missions in furthering our global interests and protecting our national security. In neglecting diplomacy, we have missed opportunities to prevent and mitigate conflicts around the world.

Our diplomatic activities are woefully underfunded, undermanned, and underutilized. We must rebuild our diplomatic capacity to meet the needs of our increasingly complex global relations. Diplomatic, economic and social assistance is a much wiser and less expensive investment than war. Rather than relying on either hard power or soft power, we must, instead, emphasize smart power.

Promoting democracy, human rights, the rule of law and the development of civil society is a matter of leadership requiring us to think beyond unilateral military solutions and to, instead, embrace a much more comprehensive approach to our relations with the international community. This rule enables us to consider legislation to do just that.

The first legislation on this rule, the Foreign Relations Act, advances crucial and laudable programs. The Department of State is authorized to hire more than 1,500 Foreign Service officers, ensuring that our overseas posts will be staffed with eager and knowledgeable workers committed to promoting American culture, values, and policies.

Critical multilateral assistance is authorized to fund our obligations to international organizations, including the United Nations and global peacekeeping operations. This effort demonstrates the United States' commitment to working with our friends and allies as a true partner in peace and cooperation.

I'm particularly pleased with the increased funding authorization for the Peace Corps, enabling a dramatic expansion in the number of volunteers and countries served. Peace Corps volunteers exemplify our national commitment to improving the world, devoting their lives to helping the world's poorest people build communities and lift themselves out of poverty. As one of our Nation's most treasured and effective international programs, we must ensure that it attracts top quality volunteers and can reach into the farthest corners of the world.

Improvements in refugee and migration assistance are a critical part of this legislation. The United States has a long history of commitment to humanitarian issues, and this bill authorizes the funds necessary to improve resources and programs to effectively help families reunite and resettle.

I fully support section 235, relating to Iraqi refugees, whom the United States has a special obligation to help. There are more than 4.7 million Iraqis currently displaced within their own country and in neighboring states. Sadly, however, this situation has not improved much. And yet the principal reason, I believe, that this crisis has not received the attention that it should is because Iraqis are not living in refugee camps. Instead, they are a mobile population scattered throughout the region. This fact alone has made this humanitarian crisis virtually invisible to the international community. However, for those Iraqis who remain stranded, jobless, and deprived of essential services, with conditions worsening by the day, this deepening crisis only threatens to further destabilize the entire region. Section 235 of this legislation is an important step towards fulfilling our obligation to assist the Iraqi people recover from years of war and conflict.

If a picture is really worth 1,000 words, then all one must do is look into the face of the Iraqi refugee, as I have, who has had a family member murdered, kidnapped or tortured, and their own life threatened, to know that the United States must respond. I'm, therefore, grateful that my language, introduced in legislation, was included in this bill.

Mr. Speaker, this rule also includes H.R. 1886, the Pakistan Enduring Assistance and Cooperation Enforcement Act. This legislation takes our Pakistan policy in a new direction, affirming the United States' commitment to a sustained partnership with Pakistan.

Since 2001, the United States has provided over $12 billion to Pakistan, without specific goals or objectives. Frankly, the situation has only gotten worse since that time.

By providing over $6 billion in 4 years in democratic, economic and social development assistance, this bill demonstrates our determination to help Pakistan build a stable, democratic and prosperous future.

This funding will provide critical resources for Pakistan to address the fundamental needs of its citizens.

Through the Pakistan Counterinsurgency Capabilities Fund, the United States is also committed to helping Pakistan combat terrorism and the Taliban insurgency. At the same time, mindful of the past history of neglecting oversight, this legislation provides a range of transparency, evaluation, and accountability standards to ensure that our money and efforts are being applied effectively and efficiently.

Mr. Speaker, as I am concerned about the situation of Iraqi refugees, I am also concerned about the situation of Pakistan's refugees. According to news reports, more than 3 million people in Pakistan's northwest region have been uprooted due to ongoing fighting. Like the Iraqi refugee crisis, the Pakistan refugee problem, if not handled properly, could become a ticking timebomb with ramifications far beyond what we can conceive today.

It is imperative that the mistakes of the previous administration with regard to Iraq are not made again. I am pleased that the United States has recently committed $200 million on top of a previous commitment of $110 million, but we must not think that this is the end of our responsibility. The United States must seize this opportunity and implement a comprehensive plan to address this growing humanitarian crisis.

Mr. Speaker, this is a good rule that paves the way to considering essential legislation to put our foreign policy on the right path towards improving our relations around the world. I urge adoption of the rule and passage of the underlying legislation.

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

Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased at this time to yield 3 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from California, my good friend, the chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee, Mr. Berman.

Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to yield 3 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from Colorado (Mr. Polis), my colleague and a good member of the Committee on Rules.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the distinguished chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee, Mr. Berman.

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

Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to yield 1 minute to the distinguished gentleman from Florida (Mr. Klein), my colleague and fellow Floridian.

Mr. Speaker, how much time do both of us have?

I would inquire of my friend if he has any additional speakers.

Then I would reserve at this time and would allow that you go forward.

Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to yield 2 minutes to the distinguished gentlewoman from New York (Ms. Clarke), my good friend.

Mr. Speaker, I have no additional speakers, and I'm prepared to close.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, this is a good rule that paves the way to improving our relations around the world.

As I listened to the ranking member, my good friend on the Rules Committee, I thought that he was going to support the rule because he's so impressed with the work that was put forward in this bill that covers developing democracies, which he has been such a tremendous champion of over a period of time.

I'll yield for 5 seconds.

Reclaiming my time, clearly it covers what you like, and I'm delighted. After years of neglect, now is the time to inject the critical resources that will enable the Department of State and other foreign policy agencies to carry out their important work of rebuilding lasting partnerships with our friends and allies.

The underlying bills include important provisions to fulfill our obligations to the United Nations, to peace-keeping efforts, to humanitarian aid and refugee assistance, and to building effective counterterrorism and arms control policy, and yes, to do everything in our power to avoid unwanted pregnancies in the first place. These bills are a great leap forward.

I urge a ``yes'' vote on the previous question and the rule.

I yield back the balance of my time, and I move the previous question.

The previous question was ordered.

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my good friend, the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Hastings), for the time, and I yield myself such time as I may consume.

First I would like to say a word about the session of the General Assembly of the Organization of American States, OAS, held last week. It was an embarrassment. Fidel Castro in Cuba wants the U.S. to apologize to him for having kept the U.S. market and its millions of tourists and billions of dollars in financing from him and for having denied him full diplomatic recognition for decades.

He also wants the international community to kneel before him and apologize, which is what the OAS did last week. Fidel Castro has been recruiting advocates, spies, defenders, cronies, and servants for years. The ideological and psychological fascination and dependency that Hugo Chavez has on Fidel Castro has allowed Castro to utilize Chavez's billions of petro dollars to purchase many important defenders. It is part of the public record that a suitcase of Chavez cash heading to Mrs. Kirchner in Argentina was recently intercepted by authorities before reaching its intended destination.

Castro has purchased advocates and spies through the years via the always-present threat of blackmail after trips to totalitarian Cuba, where the regime tapes visitors in compromising situations, as confirmed by Interior Ministry defector Roberto Hernandez del Llano and Cuban counterintelligence defector Major Roberto Ortega.

Castro also serves as a banker for illicit money possessed by those who seek to avoid detection by the anti-laundering mechanisms set up by the international community. It matters not if the money's source is political corruption or narcotrafficking.

Through his mastery of the semantic of anti-American Marxism- Leninism, he has also conned others into being his spies. No other state sponsor of terrorism--no other state, in fact--has had more spies arrested and convicted in the United States in the last decades as Fidel Castro's dictatorship.

Let us remember Ana Montes, one of the top analysts at the Defense Intelligence Agency who was arrested in 2001 and subsequently convicted of espionage in Federal court and whose treason led to the deaths of many, including U.S. Special Forces Sergeant

Gregory Fronius. And just last week, Walter and Gwendolyn Myers, a long-term State Department official and his wife with access to classified documents, were arrested for spying for their beloved hero, the Cuban tyrant.

Hugo Chavez's absolute dependency on Fidel Castro for every major decision, even for his phrases and gestures in international forums, is unprecedented. While the Soviet Union used to send Castro economic aid and also orders and instructions, Chavez sends Castro billions of dollars and receives orders from him.

What the world witnessed, first at the April Summit of the Americas and then at last week's meeting of the OAS, was a culmination of years of preparation in the purchase and cultivation of advocates and defenders by Fidel Castro. Castro's defenders know full well that chapter II, article 3d of the Charter of the Organization of American States requires the existence of representative democracy in all of the countries of our hemisphere and that the Inter-American Democratic Charter of 2001 carefully spells out the collective steps to be taken when an American republic's democracy is even threatened. They know that Cuba, under Castro, was the only country in our hemisphere where free elections have not been held in over 50 years and where dungeons are full of nonviolent political prisoners who are subjected to hell on Earth each day of their lives. They know that under Castro Cuba is a personal island-estate, a ranch, a personal landholding or homestead, a totalitarian fiefdom owned by one man with a brother who enjoys the title of head of State and carefully carries out his brother's orders.

At the OAS meeting of last week, we witnessed an example of the Obama administration's diplomatic incompetence and its appeasement of the enemies of the United States. The administration went along and agreed to violate the OAS Charter and the OAS Inter-American Democratic Charter in an action that constituted a grotesque and unmerited betrayal of the oppressed people of Cuba.

The Obama administration says that the OAS resolution was a great victory because even though paragraph 1 of the ``resolved'' clause unilaterally lifted the exclusion of the Cuban military dictatorship, in paragraph 2, the dictatorship was allowed to initiate a process of dialogue to reenter the OAS in accordance with the practices, purposes, and principles of the OAS. In other words, in the first sentence, the OAS ripped up and threw in the garbage can the practices, purposes, and principles of the OAS, including its charter and the Inter-American Democratic Charter. And then in the next sentence, it invited the Cuban military dictatorship back in in accordance with the practices, purposes, and principles of the OAS. Some victory. I mention this in the context of the Foreign Relations Authorization Act because the American taxpayer should not be paying for almost 60 percent of the putrid embarrassment which is the OAS.

I recognize that on funding international organizations, the administration will get its way, just like the Bush administration would get its way whenever someone in the OAS would propose ending the exclusion of the Cuban military dictatorship and the administration would simply say, That's a nonstarter. But here is the heart of the issue with regard to U.S.-Cuba policy: The U.S. Congress must continue to condition access by the Cuban regime to the billions of dollars in U.S. tourism and massive investment in trade financing to the liberation of all political prisoners, without exceptions; the legalization of all political parties, without exceptions, labor unions and the press; and the scheduling of multiparty elections. That is critical leverage for a democratic transition to take place in Cuba when Fidel Castro dies, for he is the ultimate source of absolute personal totalitarian power in that enslaved island, like a modern day Caligula or Nero, and that moment is approaching.

We must keep in mind the effect of unilateral concessions such as last week's shameful OAS action on Fidel Castro. How does he react to such unilateral concessions? The repression is more intense than ever; the brutality, more savage than ever. The alliance with Chavez, the Iranian dictatorship, the Syrian regime, Middle Eastern terrorists, and with the North Korean dictatorship is closer than ever. That is what must be kept in mind about unilateral concessions to the Cuban military dictatorship.

Now, specifically with regard to the Foreign Relations Authorization Act, earlier in the year Secretary Clinton testified before the House Foreign Relations Committee that she had challenged the State Department to reform and innovate and save taxpayer dollars. I found the Secretary's statement to be quite appropriate. Unfortunately, the majority has decided to ignore that challenge and instead today has brought forth legislation that authorizes increased spending by 35 percent without increased transparency, accountability, and efficiency.

This legislation will also increase U.S. taxpayer funding authorized for the United Nations by nearly one-third without requiring the United Nations to undertake necessary reforms to improve efficiency and stop blatant corruption.

While failing to place accountability standards in this bill, the majority decided to include provisions in the Pakistan Assistance Act-- which is also being brought to the floor with this one rule--that will micromanage U.S. policy toward Pakistan. In a letter to the Armed Services Committee, Secretary of Defense Gates and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mullen wrote that ``the degree of conditionality and limitations on security assistance to Pakistan'' in the legislation ``severely constrains the flexibility necessary for the executive branch and the Department of Defense given the fluid and dynamic environment that exists in Pakistan.''

This rule bringing forth two pieces of legislation limits the number of amendments that the House will be allowed to debate. Out of the 85 amendments submitted to the Rules Committee, the majority decided to make 27 amendments in order. I understand that the majority has a responsibility to move legislation and manage the time on the floor, but if we look at the amendments the majority made in order, they do not fully address the scope and range of issues of concern to House Members. For example, amendments that would prohibit funds from being used by the State Department to encourage U.S. courts to dismiss claims brought against European insurance companies to recover compensation from Holocaust-era insurance policies, or, for example, to re-list the North Korean tyranny as a state sponsor of terrorism were prohibited from being debated.

I don't understand why the majority blocks a debate on such important amendments. I don't know if they're afraid of debate or protecting the Members from tough votes or afraid of the democratic process, or all of the above.

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

Mr. Speaker, I yield 5 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Smith).

Mr. Speaker, I yield the gentleman an additional 30 seconds.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from California (Mr. Royce).

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

Mr. Speaker, with regard to the point made by the distinguished chairman as to the strings on the military aid to Pakistan, I hope and expect that that will be engaged in during the debate with the ranking member, who very clearly in the Rules Committee pointed out that the strings are still excessive.

I yield 2 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from New York (Mr. Lee).

Yes.

Thank you.

I yield 2 minutes again to the distinguished gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Smith).

Mr. Speaker, I would inquire how much time remains.

Mr. Speaker, it is a privilege to yield 2 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Broun).

Mr. Speaker, I yield the balance of our time to the ranking member, Mr. Dreier.

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

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

I thank my good friend for yielding.

I rise in opposition to the rule.

Let me just say at the outset, Mr. Speaker, in the 1990s, I served as chairman of the International Operations and Human Rights Subcommittee, at first having served as ranking member to Tom Lantos. Then when the House went Republican, we switched and I became the chairman of that committee. And one of the responsibilities of that committee was to write the Foreign Relations Act, the State Department Reauthorization Act, for the country. And we worked very hard, Mr. Lantos and I, very diligently in crafting a bill that was, A, truly bipartisan and, B, open to virtually every amendment that Members wanted to offer.

I remember bringing a bill to the floor, Mr. Speaker, where every day Members just had to file their amendments in the Congressional Record, a preprinting requirement, so in the morning we would wake up and find out what amendments might be offered, and then we would deal and dispatch positively or negatively with those amendments. The process was open, transparent and fair.

Today we have a very much closed rule, except on matters where there is consensus. Sure, there are some Republican amendments. But on areas where there is significant and fundamental disagreement, especially an amendment that I had hoped to offer to authorize the office for Global Women's Issues, I had been precluded that opportunity. And I want to say to my colleagues I didn't do that when I chaired the subcommittee, and I worked very hard in a bipartisan way with my friends, and I do consider you on the other side of the aisle friends, to ensure that we all got to express our voice and vote on things that mattered, that we all had an opportunity to express ourselves.

In Committee, I offered an amendment to establish a Global Office on Women's Issues. It lost in a party-line vote. Every Democrat voted against it; every Republican voted for it. That legislation would have established a new Office for Global Women's Issues led by an ambassador-at-large, designed to coordinate and advise on activities, policies, programs, and funding related to women's empowerment internationally. The amendment would promote activities designed to expand educational opportunities and job training for women, equal pay for equal work, microfinancing and microenterprise programs for women, property inheritance rights for women, an improvement of maternal mortality, expand pregnancy care centers, combat forced abortions and forced sterilization, to enhance our efforts in the area of sex and labor trafficking particularly of women and other forms of violence against women, seeking an end to genital mutilation, stop child marriage, and promote changes in male attitudes and behavior that are detrimental to women. That was all prescribed in the legislation, and obviously other things could be included as well, consistent with core human rights norms that all human life, Mr. Speaker, is sacred and precious and worthy of protection regardless of age, sex, race, color, creed, disability, wantedness, or condition of dependency. My amendment sought to hold harmless unborn children and their mothers from the violence of abortion.

The Smith amendment is abortion neutral and states that the new office shall not engage in activities to author the laws or the policies of foreign countries with regard to how abortion is regulated or permitted. Abortion neutral. I would like it to be a pro-life office that says it time to empower and embrace and enfranchise unborn children.

I say to my colleagues, We live in 2009. We no longer have any doubts about the humanity of an unborn child. Unborn children are just like you and I except they're young, they're immature, and they're dependent. And their human rights are violated with impunity not just in this country but around the world. Sadly, the Obama administration, and I say this with great sadness, Mr. Obama is well on his way to becoming the abortion President. Virtually everything he has done through Executive order and through appointments and through other policies promote the killing of unborn children and the wounding of their mothers.

So I rise in opposition to this rule, Mr. Speaker. Whether this body chose to vote up or down on my amendment, we should have had the opportunity. It saddens me greatly because, again, I have great affection for the chairman, Chairman Berman, and for his staff, with whom I have worked very closely on human rights issues. This is a human rights issue.

There could be a consensus about the new office that's being created, that has already been created, and that this gives statutory affirmation to for women's issues. But, unfortunately, we will not have that opportunity.

I will remind my colleagues that Alveda King, Dr. Martin Luther King's niece--

Dr. Martin Luther King's niece, Alveda King, has had two abortions. She now heads up an organization called the Silent No More Awareness Campaign, and she speaks out and says that this is the new civil rights movement, protecting the unborn child but equally protecting women from abortion. It is violence against women. It is violence against children.

The new Global Office on Women's Issues ought to at least be neutral, I would say affirm the unborn but at least neutral when it comes to respecting unborn human life.

I thank my good friend for yielding.

I just want to say to my pro-life friends on the Democrat side of the aisle: think consequences.

In late April, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton testified one of our hearings--and this is the question I posed to her--Is the Obama administration

seeking in any way to weaken or to overturn pro-life laws and policies in African nations and in Latin American countries either directly through multilateral organizations, including the United Nations, the African Union or the Organization of American States, or by way of funding NGOs like Planned Parenthood?

Secretary of State Clinton answered that the administration was ``entitled'' to advocate abortion ``anywhere in the world.''

She also went on to redefine the words ``reproductive health,'' which are found in many documents and in many laws around the world, in a way completely contrary to the accepted definition by the previous administration and by many others to now include abortion. So every time you see those words now in a document, to the Clintons and to the Obamas, they mean ``abortion on demand.''

The Office of Global Women's Issues should be all about promoting human rights for women. Promoting violence against children and promoting the wounding of their mothers by advocating abortion is not human rights. It is the contrary. It is the exact opposite.

I hope my colleagues will realize that the amendment that my good friend and colleague, the chairman of the committee, Mr. Berman, is offering simply restates current law. It says the new office will follow the law. Did anybody expect that the office would not follow the law? Of course they would. Well, hopefully, they would.

We need to make sure, we need to ensure that this new office, which will be a command and control center, for women's rights and empowerment and not become an office for NARAL, for Planned Parenthood or for others in the promotion of child deaths around the world. Let's hold harmless the precious lives of unborn children. Let's mitigate maternal mortality and all of the other crises affecting women, not the killing of unborn babies.

I thank the gentleman from Florida for yielding me this time, and I rise in strong support of the rule authorizing the Foreign Relations Act to come to the floor, H. Res. 522. This rule covers both H.R. 2410, the Foreign Relations Authorization Act for Fiscal Years 2010 and 2011, and H.R. 1886, the Pakistan Enduring Assistance and Cooperation Enhancement Act of 2009.

These are both critical measures. H.R. 2410 provides the resources necessary for the President to realize his vision of making vigorous diplomacy a cornerstone of our strategy to promote U.S. national security.

By wisely investing resources to strengthen our diplomatic capabilities, we can help prevent conflicts before they start and head off the conditions that lead to failed states. This approach is a much more cost-effective one than providing massive amounts of humanitarian aid, funding peacekeeping operations or, in the most extreme circumstances, deploying U.S. troops into harm's way.

I think the Rules Committee has crafted a fair rule in regard to the bill, one that continues our efforts to include a number of amendments from the Republican side.

With respect to H.R. 1886 regarding Pakistan, I do not need to remind my

colleagues of the challenge to U.S. national security posed by the situation in that country.

We cannot allow al Qaeda and any other terrorist group that threatens our national security interests to operate with impunity in the tribal regions or any other part of Pakistan. Nor can we permit the Pakistani State and its nuclear arsenal to be taken over by the Taliban. H.R. 1886 was designed to address these threats by supporting democracy, enhancing U.S. economic assistance, and providing the Pakistani military with the tools they need to fight the terrorists.

I am pleased we could work out a consensus on this important bill with our colleagues on the Committee on Armed Services as reflected in the amendment made in order by the rule. And I'm also pleased that the rule makes in order a Republican substitute. This way we can discuss the best way forward to ensure that we get the results we need in this ongoing effort to combat those who threaten our Armed Forces, our allies, and even our homeland.

I urge all my colleagues to support the rule.

I again thank my friend from Florida for yielding me some additional time.

Mr. Speaker, I would like to use this time to deal with one of the points made by my friend from Florida (Mr. Lincoln Diaz-Balart) and then more substantially to the issue raised by the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Smith).

Mr. Diaz-Balart cited a letter signed by the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the Secretary of Defense that was sent a number of weeks ago, long before a series of changes were made in this bill. At the time that letter was sent, we had a very elaborate resolution of disapproval process for the Presidential determinations. That has been struck. We had a very high waiver standard vital to national security interests. That has been struck. We had a great dispute that was existing over how the Pakistan Counterinsurgency Cooperation Fund should work. Those issues have all been worked out with the House Armed Services Committee. The House Armed Services Committee has worked through all of these issues with us. They are reflected in the Pakistan bill. This is the committee to whom the Secretary's letter was addressed. A number of changes have been made. My friend's comments relate more to the Pentagon's view of this bill before all those changes were made than they do now.

The issues I would really like to focus on are the issues raised by the gentleman from New Jersey. This is a State Department authorization bill.

The first thing was to put together this bill to say we are not going to use this piece of legislation to change the substantive law on the issue that is so controversial for which disagreements are so strong in this House. This is not going to be a vehicle for changing the law on that subject. So, when a number of the groups came with a compelling case--the pro-choice groups--that we should include a provision in this bill that prohibits any President in the future from imposing an executive order, such as the Mexico City policies, I said I would love to. I support that position, but we're not going to use this bill to do it.

The gentleman from New Jersey, in his heart, is not truly driving at the Office of Global Women's Issues. This is an office that, in one form or another, has been around since 1975. Their purpose is to promote education for women and girls around the world and to promote political empowerment, like the right to vote for women and dealing with problems of violence against women. There is no basis for assuming that this office is going to do anything to promote or to lobby for abortion.

Moreover, in the manager's amendment, which is made in order by this rule that we are now debating, I said let us establish in policy our statement of neutrality on this issue. We include in the manager's amendment a provision which says nothing in this section, and in particular, the duties of the Office of Global Women's Issues, shall be construed as affecting in any way existing statutory prohibitions against abortion. There will be no change whatsoever in existing statutory prohibitions against abortion or in existing statutory prohibitions on the use of funds to engage in any activity or effort to alter the laws or policies in effect in any foreign country concerning the circumstances under which abortion is permitted, regulated or prohibited.

That means the Siljander amendment, the Helms amendment and the Leahy amendment, which construct the current state of the law with respect to U.S. efforts on this issue abroad, remain in effect and unchanged, and there is nothing in the statutory institutionalization of an already existing Office of Global Women's Issues that will change any of that. We reaffirm that by this statute.

What the gentleman from New Jersey wants to do--he didn't quite say it, but he acknowledges it when asked about it--is change the law. That's legitimate. He can have his efforts; but for those of us who say let's not use this as a vehicle one way or the other and for those of us who have rejected efforts that we, personally, support and to which I am very much committed in

the pro-choice community regarding this issue, there is no basis for saying that this bill is defective because it doesn't serve either side's agenda on this particular issue.

I want to thank the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Johnson) for yielding, and I want to certainly thank Chairman Conyers, Chairman Scott, Mr. Issa, the entire Judiciary Committee, and the House leadership for recognizing the importance of this legislation by bringing it to the floor today.

Mr. Speaker, while our soldiers fight in Iraq and Afghanistan, many citizens across our Nation are facing terrorism right here at home, right here in their own neighborhoods. People are being murdered in broad daylight, and their killers are walking free because we do not protect witnesses to crimes from threats against their safety if they cooperate with the police, if they testify in court, or even if they are listed as witnesses to testify in court.

This epidemic of witness intimidation is a menace to our civil society, and it is a plague on our entire justice system. In fact, it was the deaths of Angela and Carnell Dawson and their five children, ages 9 to 14, that first motivated me to address this issue. I can remember very vividly sitting at a funeral with one adult casket and with the caskets of five children. Then, a day later, the husband died, and we went to his funeral.

The entire Dawson family was killed in October 2002 when a gang member firebombed their home in the middle of the night in retaliation for Mrs. Dawson's repeated complaints to the police about the recurring drug trafficking in her east Baltimore neighborhood.

I might add, Mr. Speaker, that Mrs. Dawson literally lived within about a 5-minute drive from my house.

Angela Dawson and her family were not affiliated in any way with drugs or gangs. Rather, Mrs. Dawson was just a civic-minded parent, trying to clean up her neighborhood, and trying to make it a safe place for her children and for other families.

While several State and local entities have established witness assistance programs, many of these programs have fallen victim to the tough economic times and have had to be discontinued. Conversely, the U.S. Marshals Service uses $65 million to operate its Federal Witness Security Program, and it has an excellent track record. In all of its years in existence, they have never been known to have lost a witness, and at the same time, the prosecutors in those cases have had an 89 percent success rate.

It is because of this inequity that I call upon my colleagues to give law enforcement the ability to protect the sanctity of our justice system and pass H.R. 1741, the Witness Security and Protection Grant Program Act.

H.R. 1741 would help local law enforcement officers strengthen witness assistance and protection units, sending a very loud and clear message to

criminals that our citizens and we in the Congress of the United States of America will not be deterred by fear tactics like intimidation.

Speaking of intimidation, throughout the City of Baltimore, we have a group that put out two trailers entitled ``Stop Snitching.'' In one of those trailers I, along with the State's attorney, were threatened because we were standing up for this legislation and because we were standing up for witnesses. I made it very clear to them that I have no fear because, if you can have a situation where a person can literally be standing on a corner and 20 people know the perpetrator and the perpetrator comes up and blows somebody's brains out and nobody testifies, what happens then is that we have given the criminal more power; we have taken power away from regular citizens. The next thing you know, the criminal feels that there are no consequences to his or her actions.

You cannot have a criminal justice system that is effective and efficient unless you have the cooperation of witnesses. It is up to this Congress to make it very, very clear that we will not, under any circumstances, stand for witnesses to be intimidated, harmed, threatened, killed or in any way deterred from carrying out their duties to assist police and law enforcement.

The bill would provide $150 million in competitive grants over 5 years to enable State and local governments to establish witness assistance programs with priority given to cities or to locales that have had an average of at least 100 homicides per year during the most recent 5-year period. H.R. 1741 would also allow these programs to receive technical assistance from the United States Marshals Service.

By improving the protection for State and local witnesses, we come one step closer to alleviating the fears and the threats of prospective witnesses and to safeguarding our communities from violence.

Again, I want to thank Mr. Conyers. I want to thank Mr. Johnson, Mr. Scott, and the ranking member for their support. I urge my colleagues to pass this legislation.