Floor Statements

Madam Speaker, I'm very proud to introduce the Calling for 211 Act of 2007, and I look forward to working with my colleagues on the Energy and Commerce Committee to move this legislation through Committee and bring it to the House floor. I have cosponsored this bill in previous Congresses with former Rep. Mike Bilirakis, and I'm confident that we now have the momentum to pass this legislation and send it to the President.

Every hour of every day, someone in the United States needs essential services for themselves or someone close to them. These services can range from finding an after-school program for a child, to securing care for an aging parent, to finding drug or alcohol counseling. Faced with a myriad of agencies and help lines, many people end up going without services they need just because they don't know where to begin.

When someone calls 2-1-1, an information and referral specialist assesses the caller's needs and determines which service provider is best equipped to handle their problem or crisis. These specialists are also trained to determine whether a caller may be eligible for other programs. 2-1-1 service providers maintain comprehensive databases of resources, including federal, state, and local government agencies, community-based organizations, and private non-profits.

In 2000, the FCC designated 2-1-1 for community information and referral purposes. Today, 2-1-1 reaches 193 million Americans--about 69 percent of the U.S. population--with call centers operational in 41 states and the District of Columbia. However, inadequate funding prevents universal access to 2-1-1 service in every state. 2-1-1 service is currently available statewide in only 17 states. The goal of the Calling for 211 Act of 2007 is to ensure that all Americans have access to quality community information and referral services through 2-1-1 wherever they live.

The largest barriers for communities seeking to implement 2-1-1 are funding and awareness. In many states, limited resources have slowed the process of connecting communities with this vital service. Current funding where 2-1-1 is operational comes from diverse sources including non-profits, state governments, foundations, and businesses.

The Calling for 211 Act is strongly supported by the United Way and builds on existing efforts to make it easier to connect people with important community services and volunteer opportunities. The legislation provides federal matching grants to enable much-needed changes to the way people connect to community social services, including:

Providing the infrastructure to connect individuals with precise information and social services that address their needs;

Empowering the nation to better respond to large-scale emergencies and homeland security needs by relieving pressure on overwhelmed 9-1-1 call centers. During the Hurricane Katrina disaster, 2-1-1 served as a crucial backup in areas where 9-1-1 centers went down;

Providing aggregated data from 2-1-1 systems nationwide to better assess the needs of our communities.

I believe the 2-1-1 system has great potential; this legislation will establish a federal partnership with states and local communities to give more Americans access to 2-1-1 services. By augmenting existing funding from state and local governments, nonprofits, and the business community, we can ensure that 2-1-1 can finally be a truly national system. A small investment at the national level would pay immediate dividends in terms of faster, more efficient responses to non-emergency but still critical situations.

In a crisis no one has time to flip through their phonebook. When an urgent medical or safety issue arises, we dial 9-1-1 knowing we can get help anywhere and at anytime. We should expect the same when it comes to tracking down important social services as well.

I urge my colleagues to support this legislation and help to implement this critical safety net for all Americans.

Madam Speaker, I rise in strong support of the rules package before us. As we begin the important work of the 110th Congress, it is imperative that we set the tone for how the people's work will be conducted in this chamber, which is the people's House.

In the November elections, Democrats offered Americans a new direction and a more ethical Congress. The American people responded with great clarity. Exit polls revealed that 74 percent of voters in November cited corruption as an important issue in determining their vote.

Now it is our turn to act. That's why we are taking immediate steps to fulfill the promise of a more ethical Congress by passing a comprehensive rules package that bans gifts and travel from lobbyists; requires adequate time to review legislation and bans the insertion of special interest provisions in the `dead of the night' to ensure that Members have time to read the bills being considered and know exactly what is in them; mandates annual ethics training for all Members and staff; curbs abuses of voting time to ensure that votes are not held open to change the outcome; requires full disclosure of all earmarks, as well as requiring that a Member certify that earmarks do not financially benefit them or their spouses; and reinstates Pay-As-You-Go budget rules to prevent all new spending and tax cuts from adding to the federal debt.

Passage of this legislative package will begin the process of restoring integrity to the House of Representatives, assuring the people of our country that we are here on their behalf, not our own. I urge my colleagues to vote for this rules package.

Mr. Speaker, as the Democratic sponsor of this bill, I am proud to rise today in strong support of this legislation.

Since 1981, the CDC estimates that the number of infants born too soon has increased by over 30 percent. More than 500,000 infants are born prematurely each year. Tragically, premature infants are 14 times more likely to die in their first year of life and premature babies who survive may suffer lifelong consequences including cerebral palsy, mental retardation, chronic lung disease, and vision and hearing loss. Preterm delivery can happen to any pregnant woman and in nearly half of the cases, no one knows why.

This legislation will help identify the causes of prematurity and reduce the episodes of preterm labor and delivery. It also aims to reduce the risk of pregnancy-related deaths and complications due to pregnancy, and reduce infant mortality caused by prematurity. But the overarching goal of this legislation is to bring hope to the 1,305 babies born too soon each day, and extend hope to their families. This legislation gives us a chance to make a difference.

The PREEMIE Act requires HHS and the CDC to expand and coordinate their research activities on preterm labor and delivery and infant mortality, and to conduct research on the relationship between prematurity, birth defects, and developmental disabilities. In order to increase awareness of preterm birth as a serious, common and costly public health problem, the bill also requires the Surgeon General to conduct an expert conference on prematurity and report to Congress its recommendations for how the public and private sectors can identify the causes of and risk factors for preterm labor and delivery, and improve treatments.

This bill has the strong endorsement of the March of Dimes, which has worked closely with us to craft this legislation. I salute and thank them for their advocacy.

This legislation has broad bipartisan support in the House of Representatives and the Senate. I thank the bill's many cosponsors for their support and I especially want to pay tribute to the sponsor of this legislation, Congressman Fred Upton, for his leadership on this issue. We introduced this bill together in previous Congresses and I'm proud to have worked with him to make this bill a reality.

I also want to thank the bill's champions in the Senate, Senators Lamar Alexander and Chris Dodd. It has been a rewarding experience for me to work in a bipartisan, bicameral fashion to enact this legislation, and I think our collective efforts have made this bill stronger because of it.

I want to thank Chairman Barton for acknowledging the importance of acting on this legislation before the end of the year and bringing it to the floor today. I also want to thank the staff members who have put so much time and energy into this legislation: Page Kranbuhl with Senator Alexander, Tamar Magarik with Senator Dodd, Jane Williams with Representative Upton, Randy Pate with Chairman Barton, and Jennifer Nieto of my staff.

Mr. Speaker, this is an important bill which will help make a difference in the lives of families across America and around the world and I urge my colleagues to support it.

Mr. Speaker, as the Democratic sponsor of the House version of this bill, H.R. 5533, I am proud to rise today in strong support of this legislation. This bill addresses an urgent issue which is critical to our Nation's security and public health: The threat of bioterror and pandemic disease.

Last week the State Department issued a warning that the continuing spread of a highly contagious avian influenza (H5N1) virus among animals in Asia, Africa, the Middle East and Europe has the potential to significantly threaten human health. The virus has already caused nearly 150 human deaths around the world. If a virus such as H5N1 mutates and spreads easily from one person to another, avian influenza could break out globally. While there are no reports of sustained human-to-human transmission of avian influenza, the U.S. government and international health agencies are scrambling to prepare for a possible pandemic.

In hearings earlier this year on the Project Bioshield Act, it was apparent that gaps remain in our effort to address emerging threats

to public health. In particular, we learned that very few companies are willing to risk their limited resources to develop the vaccines and antidotes to respond to chemical, biological, radiological or nuclear attacks or to a fast-spreading influenza such as H5N1. Put simply, there is little economic incentive for companies to conduct the vital research necessary in this field.

The centerpiece of our legislation is a new office within HHS, the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA), which will be a single point of federal authority for the development of medical countermeasures.

The bill enables the Secretary of HHS and the BARDA Director to collaborate and consult with agency leaders, academia, and industry on developing needed medical countermeasures and pandemic or epidemic products. This bill also empowers BARDA to make milestone payments to drug developers at key stages of their work, helping to reduce the financial risks of taking on such a great challenge.

This legislation has broad bipartisan support in the House of Representatives and the Senate, and I thank the bill's many cosponsors for their support. I especially want to thank Congressman Mike Rogers for his leadership on this issue. This bill demonstrates the good that can come out of bipartisan teamwork and I'm proud to have worked with him to make this bill a reality.

I also want to thank Chairmen Barton and Deal as well as Ranking Member Dingell for acknowledging the importance of this legislation and working with us every step of the way to get it done before the end of the year.

I also want to thank the staff members who have put so much time and energy into this legislation: Kelly Childress with Representative Rogers, Nandan Kenkeremath with Chairman Barton, Brandon Clark with Chairman Deal, John Ford with Representative Dingell, and Jason Mahler and Jennifer Nieto of my staff.

Mr. Speaker, this is a good bill that ensures our country is doing its best to prepare for the worst. Thank you for bringing this bill before the House today and I urge my colleagues to support it.

The Senate bill was ordered to be read a third time, was read the third time, and passed, and a motion to reconsider was laid on the table.

Mr. Speaker, I rise to place into the Congressional Record the words of William B. Gould IV, former Chairman of the National Labor Relations Board and professor emeritus at Stanford University Law School. He recently wrote an article advocating changes to the National Labor Relations Act which merits inclusion in our Nation's Record. The following article was published in the San Francisco Chronicle on November 21, 2006, and was titled Why Labor Law Is Not Working.

America's labor law system and much of the workplace

environment surrounding it are dysfunctional. But proposals

about reforming the National Labor Relations Act, initially

enacted as a ``Bill of Rights'' for workers to join unions

and bargain collectively, have been bandied about without

action for at least four decades. Most Americans who care

about good labor-management relations have seen this movie

before. Yet the Sept. 30 decision by the National Labor

Relations Board that excludes many hospital charge nurses

from labor law coverage as supervisors and its potential for

doing the same to other professionals as well as skilled

workers, is part of a new dimension to the story's plot.

For more than a half century, each new president's

appointees have made the pendulum shift. But the changes, as

most recently illustrated by the charge nurse decisions, take

it up more than a notch; prominent management labor law firms

are quickly providing Web postings about how to change the

duties of employees so that they qualify for statutory

exclusion. Well before this decision, the appointees of

President Bush busily reinterpreted the law so as to deny

many workers the opportunity for representation at the

workplace.

For example, graduate teaching assistants at private

universities, who function as both students and employees,

were written out of the law two years ago. Prohibitions

against fraternization amongst employees during non-working

hours, a major avenue for self-organization, were viewed as

lawful. The same applied to employer and NLRB denial of union

protests in shopping malls. The collective-bargaining

process was impaired by virtue of NLRB rulings that

employers did not have an obligation to open their books

to unions, contrary to Supreme Court mandate when the

employer claims an inability to pay.

True, the law is a secondary factor in the precipitous

decline in union membership to less than 13 percent of the

workforce and to 7.8 percent in the private sector. Other

factors--globalization, deregulation in transportation,

vulnerable contingent and part-time employees, including

illegal immigrants--are more significant as an explanation

for labor's near-demise than the law's many weaknesses.

However, for the past 35 years, the inability of the law to

provide an expeditious resolution to worker and employer

complaints--

and thus assurance that justice will not be denied through

its delay as well as inadequate remedies, have made reform

necessary long before the Bush-appointed NLRB began to work

its mischief. The newly elected Democratic-led Congress

should address labor-law reform.

Notwithstanding the subordinate role the law plays in the

workplace malaise, respect for the law and its function are

an important element in the democratic process.

This time around, however, the discussion must take into

account a need for more sweeping changes which affect the

agency itself. More formidable than one-sided statutory

interpretations is a lack of production of cases. Ironically,

as the number of cases filed with the NLRB has dropped, in

part because unions lost confidence in its rulings, the

resolution of those cases remaining declined. The reason for

NLRB lethargy is not only Bush's hostility to collective

bargaining, but also the appointment process: the past decade

and a half has witnessed the emergence of partisan appointees

and a greater reliance on Washington insiders from Capitol

Hill, who, having no place to return, cling to office while

they fail to decide cases which, they fear, will interfere

with their reappointment process.

The consequence of this is a politicization of decision-

making, an ever-deeper NLRB ideological divide and the

unwillingness of Congress to approve any presidential

nominees without ``batching'' the appointments, i.e.

providing for at least two appointments at a time, one with

the blessing of labor, the other with the blessing of

business. This means no more appointments like those made in

labor law's early and halcyon days of the 1940s and '50s,

when genuine impartial neutrals were appointed by Presidents

Roosevelt and Truman.

One answer to the production problem and its denial of the

prompt relief to which both workers and employers are

entitled is longer terms and a prohibition against

reappointment. The number of board members should be reduced

to three members rather than five. This year, the board is at

full strength, and its production is worse than ever. It is

obvious that politically anxious prevarication is exacerbated

when there are a greater number of cooks standing around the

cold soup. The denial of collective bargaining to the

overwhelming majority of the American workforce is one of our

democracy's great failings. While changing our labor law and

those who administer it will not remedy all that ails us, it

would be a step forward.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to this legislation which threatens to overturn two centuries of legal precedent, and which undermines our Nation's longstanding international obligations enshrined in the Geneva Conventions.

As Members of Congress we have no higher priority than the security of the American people. It's our duty to see that anyone who murders Americans is properly tried and punished. This responsibility requires us to address the disastrous detainee policies put in place by the Bush Administration. Republicans and Democrats have sought to create a sustainable legal framework that gives our judiciary the tools to deliver justice to our enemies in swift, clear and fair terms. Above all, our methods must reflect the ideals of our Constitution and the highest standards in protecting human rights and due process under the law.

The bill before us fails to meet these standards. Instead, it erodes the protections of the Geneva Conventions and reverses two centuries of American jurisprudence by denying habeas corpus protections for the accused. More dangerously, it fails to eliminate the use of torture, which has seriously undermined global support for our fight against terrorism.

As a member of the House Intelligence Committee I'm very familiar with the challenges we face in the fight against terror, and nothing I have seen has convinced me that the measures in this bill will make us safer or provide an effective framework for bringing our enemies to justice.

The Geneva Conventions exist not to embolden our enemies but to protect our own soldiers from harm should they be captured or detained. Our failure to embrace these standards of treatment opens the door to misconduct by our enemies, a reality that many current and former military experts have spoken out against. Former Secretary of State Colin Powell put it best by saying that redefining our obligations under the Geneva Conventions will encourage other countries to ``doubt the moral basis of our fight against terrorism. . . . Furthermore, it would put our own troops at risk.'' No one doubts the wisdom of Secretary Powell in these matters and it's reckless of this body to ignore his counsel.

Habeas corpus rights, likewise, do not give comfort to the guilty, nor do they help to free terrorists in our custody. They exist only to protect the innocent, and their proper application helps reduce the risk of detaining the wrong individuals. The failure to provide habeas corpus rights was a key issue in the Supreme Court's decision to declare the Administration's original tribunal system unconstitutional. Denying these rights again with this bill creates a serious threat to the constitutionality of the legislation, and makes it more than likely that we'll all be back here in a year, or 5 years from now, trying once again to create a system that will bring terrorist enemies to justice.

Finally, this bill fails to set an appropriate standard for the treatment of prisoners and relaxes the restrictions on the use of torture embodied in Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions. The bill grants the sole authority for interpreting the Geneva Conventions, including Common Article 3, to the President, giving the Administration the option to relax or simply ignore these protections outright. The bill also specifies that the restrictions on the use of torture laid out in the Army Field Manual which apply uniformly to U.S. military personnel and facilities, do not apply to other U.S. agencies engaged in the fight against terror, including the CIA.

Our security depends on effective and lawful interrogation practices that yield dependable, actionable intelligence. This legislation gives the Administration a blank check to define its own methods for interrogation and opens the door for abuses. We've already seen where permissive interrogation rules can lead . . . it's called Abu Ghraib. Certainly what we have lost in credibility in the eyes of the world community and the Iraqi people weighs heavily against any information that has been obtained. To ensure accountability Congress must have the ability to review and set standards for interrogation practices around the world. Doing so ensures not only their legality, but ultimately their effectiveness. This bill takes that responsibility out of our hands.

Mr. Speaker, for all the stated reasons, this bill should not become the policy of our great Nation and I urge my colleagues to oppose it.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to honor Elizabeth Gheleta who is retiring after more than three decades of service as Executive Director of the Service League of San Mateo County, California.

Elizabeth Gheleta joined the Service League of San Mateo County in 1968, and in the ensuing 38 years she has worked tirelessly to improve the correctional system and provide opportunities for the incarcerated to create change in their lives. She became Executive Director in 1978, when funding cuts under California's Proposition 13 threatened to close the Service League's doors. Under her leadership, the Service League has grown into a highly respected non-profit organization with strong community ties, 25 permanent staff and over 500 dedicated volunteers. They provide a myriad of services that have helped rebuild the lives of thousands of County inmates, their children and their families.

Elizabeth Gheleta has been responsible for the development and expansion of in-jail programs to help inmates learn how to function better once they are released, increasing their chances of successful reentry into the community. In addition to religious services, she has helped initiate hundreds of educational and self-improvement programs which focus on transition, substance abuse recovery, personal responsibility, permanent housing and family life skills. Today, Service League employees and volunteers provide more than 800 such programs every year. Under Ms. Gheleta's leadership, the Service League has also developed four residential facilities for former inmates and launched programs to assist the children and families of inmates, especially during the holidays. Ms. Gheleta's vision of improved inmate services has resulted in highly effective programs that are the gold standard for correctional systems nationwide.

Elizabeth Gheleta has earned the highest respect of her colleagues, her community, and every individual and family to whom she has devoted her career. Because of her leadership, tenacity, creativity and belief in others, thousands of former inmates and their families have reintegrated into society and have become responsible and productive members of our community.

Mr. Speaker, it is a special privilege for me to honor my friend Elizabeth Gheleta, her extraordinary career and her extraordinary achievements. I ask my colleagues to join me in honoring her because she has bettered the soul of our community as well as our Nation.

Mr. Speaker, when Congress passed the Ryan White CARE Act in 1990, we sent hope to millions of Americans who were living under a death sentence that came with a diagnosis of HIV or AIDS. In large part because of Ryan White, outcomes have dramatically improved.

This bill fails to uphold the hopeful tradition of the original legislation because it creates a system of winner and losers in the allocation of federal resources. This major reauthorization of our federal HIV/AIDS policy is also being considered under suspension of the rules, prohibiting Members from offering amendments to address the serious deficiencies in the bill.

Last week, I offered an amendment with several of my colleagues from the California, New York and New Jersey delegations to increase the overall authorization levels in the bill which would helps address the needs of communities more recently affected by the epidemic. Our amendment also extended the hold harmless provisions of the bill by two years to ensure that the historic epicenters of the disease do not experience precipitous declines in funding levels from year to year. Our amendment was defeated by a single vote.

Today we can't offer that amendment or any other. Instead, we're left with a ``take it or leave it'' proposed that doesn't adequately respond to the real needs of people suffering from HIV and AIDS.

Congress has responsibility to address the imminent crisis facing emerging communities, but we can't abandon the infrastructure of care already in place. By eliminating the hold harmless provision after three years in order to free up funding for emerging communities, some localities will experience sharp funding declines.

The bill also doesn't allow sufficient time for states to transit HIV code-based reporting systems to the more efficient names-based system. Although California is making enormous strides to comply, Governor Schwarzenegger reports that the state will likely miss the 2009 deadline, sustaining a loss of up to $50 million, or 23 percent, of its total funding in FY2011. Such a loss has the potential to derail the entire state's HIV/AIDS care system.

Given my serious concerns about the ability of this bill to preserve current infrastructure of care while extending assistance to areas of the country newly affected by the HIV/AIDS epidemic, and with no opportunity to address these concerns with amendments, I reluctantly oppose this bill.

Mr. Speaker, I thank our distinguished ranking member for yielding.

I wish we were debating final passage on a much better bill. Sadly, this bill gives the administration what it wants: a blank check to conduct domestic surveillance without a warrant.

Mrs. Wilson said earlier that this is not a White House bill. Well, if it is not a White House bill, it is a White House dream, because it is a blank check to the President.

Instead of addressing specific problems in the law with tailored solutions, this bill eviscerates the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. Now, that Act is only almost 30 years old. It is not an antique. It hasn't collected dust. It has been revised. It has been amended. It has been brought up to date. But that is not good enough. This bill eviscerates it.

One of the arguments advanced during the debate was that FISA needs to be technology neutral. I agree. We agreed. We went out to NSA. They told us that. We agreed. We offered a tailored solution. Rejected. The whole bill has to be scrapped in order to make changes.

That is not a prudent course. This bill heads us down a dangerous path. The radical changes this bill makes to FISA definitions and standards represent a wholesale rewrite of the law. They nullify FISA by exempting large categories of U.S. person communications from the warrant requirement, and it rubber-stamps all forms of data mining.

The American people want us to protect them, but they don't want us to throw the Constitution overboard. May I remind everyone, with the obligation that we have to the American people when we come here, the oath we take says that we will uphold the Constitution of the United States. This bill does not live up to our Constitution. It gives away the fourth amendment. Members of the House should reject it.

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

Mr. Speaker, I am really proud to be the Democratic sponsor of this bill; and I want to salute my friend and my colleague, Representative Rogers, for the work that he has done. We have really enjoyed working together, and I think that the best part of this all is that our work has really produced something that is important for the American people. So I want to thank him for everything that he has done to see that the bill is on the floor today.

This legislation really addresses a very urgent issue which is critical to our Nation's security and our public health.

A month after the 9/11 attacks on New York and Washington, our country was attacked again. When we were attacked that second time, it was when envelopes of anthrax spores were mailed to several media outlets and congressional offices. The attacks killed five people, they crippled our mail service here on the Hill and cost hundreds of millions of dollars to clean up.

We are now observing the spread of a virulent new strain of Avian influenza, the so-called Asian bird flu, in Asia and around the world, causing nearly 150 deaths and threatening to become the next deadly pandemic.

Whether the threat is man-made bioterrorism or a highly infectious disease, our country is at risk, and we are losing precious time in the race to develop effective countermeasures that could save thousands or even millions of lives.

In hearings earlier this year on the Project BioShield Act, it was apparent that gaps remained in our effort to address these threats to the public health.

In particular, we learned that very few companies are willing to risk their limited resources to develop the vaccines and the antidotes to respond to chemical, biological, radiological or nuclear attacks or to a fast-spreading influenza.

Given the risks and the costs involved, it is not surprising that companies would rather pursue the next blockbuster cancer medicine or cholesterol medicine rather than take a chance on an uncertain market where the government is likely to be the only customer.

So having heard this in the hearings, we rolled our sleeves up. We understood that Project BioShield does not address the problem. While the law set aside $5.6 billion over 10 years to obtain drugs for the Strategic National Stockpile, companies receive very little compensation until they can deliver a minimum number of doses. As a result, many of these potential drugs languish in the laboratory in what is known as the ``Valley of Death.''

As with any drug, the development of biodefense drugs require efficacy trials, toxicity testing, production design and a range of other activities that are expensive but necessary to determine whether a drug will work, whether it is safe and how it will be manufactured.

The centerpiece of this legislation that we are on the floor on behalf of this evening develops a new, or places a new office within HHS, the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority, BARDA, which would be a single point of Federal authority for the development of medical countermeasures.

This bill will empower BARDA to make milestone payments to drug developers at key stages of their work, helping to reduce financial risks of taking on this great challenge. In other words, we are going to get the job done.

I urge my colleagues to support this important legislation, which will ensure that our country does its best to prepare for the worst.

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

Mr. Speaker, I just want to close. I do not think I have any other individuals to come to the floor to speak on this this evening.

I also want to thank our staffs, because they have worked exceedingly hard and exceedingly well with one another, both from Mr. Rogers' staff, certainly mine, with Steve Keenan and Jennifer Nieto, and everyone that helped them in my office, as well as John Ford on the minority staff of the committee, as well as the majority staff. I salute all of you. I thank you. I am proud of the work we have been able to do.

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

I yield myself such time as I might consume.

Madam Speaker, I want to start off by saluting Chairman Barton. This is a great achievement for the chairman and for the country. Joe, you did everything for the right reasons; and you did it the right way with everyone.

This jurisdiction of NIH, which I very affectionately call the National Institutes of Hope, is really a crown jewel in the jurisdiction of the Energy and Commerce Committee. But it has been 13 years, I believe, since there has been a reauthorization; and it is extraordinary that a bill of such import has been brought to the floor and will receive the support, I think almost unanimously, of Members in the House of Representatives. And that is a tribute to you of how you have done this and how much you have cared about it.

There is the letters of endorsement from, it is really one of the greatest honor rolls of endorsers and stakeholders in the country, and the chairman made reference to them. So, to Chairman Barton, congratulations, job well done, something really important for the people of our country.

We are considering this bill. It is the National Institutes of Health Reform Act of 2006, H.R. 6164. It is a very important piece of legislation that will reauthorize our foremost medical research center and the Federal focal point for medical research in our Nation.

The goal of the NIH is to acquire new knowledge to help prevent, to detect, to diagnose and to treat diseases and disabilities from the rarest genetic disorder to the common cold. The American people look to the NIH. They trust the NIH. They want us to make investments in it, because it does represent hope for the future.

The NIH conducts research in its own laboratories. It supports research of non-Federal scientists in universities. And I am proud that Stanford Medical School, under the great leadership of Dr. Phil Pizzo, is one of the supporters of this legislation. It supports medical schools, hospitals, and research institutions throughout the country and abroad. I think many people don't realize that, that there is a portion of this that takes place abroad. And it helps in the training of research investigators, and it fosters communication of medical health and health sciences information.

This Act is going to help to ensure the continued success of the NIH. There are many, many commendable provisions of this bill. The establishment of the common fund should serve to stimulate trans-NIH research in areas of emerging scientific opportunities, rising public health challenges, or knowledge gaps that deserve special attention and are going to benefit from additional research that involves collaboration between two or more institutes or centers.

Another significant provision of the legislation is the creation of an infrastructure to evaluate and report on the NIH research portfolio. It is very, very important, very difficult to go through and to document the contributions of the NIH in key areas, and this is going to provide for that.

The bill contains many admirable goals and provisions that are going to help NIH in its long-term battle to overcome human disease and disability.

What the bill does not address, and some Members raised this at the committee, is the issue of funding. Some of us think there could be more funding, that there is insufficient funding. This really is the largest problem facing the NIH today. After years of significant funding increases for NIH, this Congress has effectively chosen to flat-fund the agency. After adjusting for inflation, this could turn out to actually be a funding cut.

In an effort to address this problem, Representative Markey offered an amendment during our full committee markup last week. His amendment sought to ensure that this Congress provided a real 5 percent increase in funding for NIH, not one that could be diminished by inflation. But the amendment did not pass. It was defeated along a party line vote.

A significant increase in the number of grant applications combined with a frozen level of congressional funding has really taken its toll on the NIH. That is why some of us thought that it was very important to act and to provide more resources to ensure that NIH's funding levels don't fall any lower.

Despite the fact that this bill offers no assurances of what I just described, it is still a good bill, it is a solid bill, it makes progress, and I will support its passage, and I urge my colleagues to do that.

I also want to acknowledge the work of the Energy and Commerce Committee staff. Again, John Ford, who is a hero of so many of ours on the Democratic staff, Katherine Martin of the Republican staff, as well as Cheryl Jeager of Mr. Blunt's staff, as well as my chief of staff, Jason Mahler. They all have had an important hand in this. We are all grateful to them.

Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of our time.

At this time I would like to yield 3 minutes to my wonderful colleague from California, Representative Lois Capps, an extraordinary member of the committee and a great supporter of the NIH.

Madam Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Rush), our colleague on the Energy and Commerce Committee.

Madam Speaker, I am pleased to yield 4\1/2\ minutes to one of the most respected members of the Energy and Commerce Committee, the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Markey).

Madam Speaker, I have no further requests for time, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I was not present during rollcall vote No. 465 on September 21, 2006.

On rollcall vote No. 465, I would have voted ``no''.

Mr. Speaker, today we join together to honor the nearly 3,000 people who perished in the heinous attach on our country five years ago. The images of that day remain vivid in our minds, as do the emotions we all felt--the shock the grief--as we realized that a handful of terrorists plotting halfway around the world were capable of destroying so many innocent lives on American soil. September 11, 2001, shattered the illusion that our homeland would always provide safe sanctuary from those who would do us harm.

Five years later, we also remember how the events of September 11 brought our country together. As we did after Pearl Harbor, American showed its true colors. After the twin towers fell, we put aside our political differences to unite behind a pledge to make our country safer and to track down and punish those responsible for the attacks. With the world on our side, we had a unique opportunity to marshal our vast resources to destroy the al Qaeda terrorist network for good.

We made a good start. At home, we moved quickly to tighten airport security and to reorganize our homeland defenses and intelligence infrastructure to close gaps that enabled the terrorists to use our own commercial airliners as weapons against us. Overseas, wording with our allies, our military tools the fight to al Qaeda and the Taliban, who had provided safe harbor to the terrorists and their training camps in Afghanistan for far too long.

Today, however, it is clear that we have failed to finish the job we needed to do. Instead of committing our forces to pursuing al Qaeda's leaders--including Osama bin Laden, who is still at large--we embarked on an unnecessary war of choice in Iraq that has squandered our resources and the world's goodwill without making us measurably safer.

Domestically, we've spent billions to secure our airports, but we've neglected the security of our ports and the cyber security of our technological infrastructure and communications network. Chronic underfunding and lax security standards have left our nation's ports and cargo containers a soft underbelly, and the President's ongoing failure to appoint an Assistant Homeland Security Secretary for Cyber Security has created a leadership void in this critical sector, leaving us vulnerable to a telecom disaster on the scale of an ``electronic Pearl Harbor.''

It's not too late to change course to do what must be done to prevail in the real war against terrorism.

We must recommit to finishing the job in Afghanistan, to fully funding our counterterrorism intelligence programs at home and abroad, to increasing the size of our Special Forces, to improving our human intelligence capability and to securing nuclear materials around the world.

Only then will we truly be able to say that we have fully honored those who lost their lives on September 11.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to honor a distinguished American, Robert F. Kerley, who died on July 7, 2006.

Robert Kerley was born and educated in California. He served his country during World War II as a member of General Mark Clark's staff in Italy. After the war he earned his B.S. Degree at the University of California Berkeley, and then began his quarter century career with the University. He was at Berkeley from 1951 until 1964 when he left to become the Vice President for Business Affairs and Treasurer at the University of Kentucky, and went on to serve as Vice President for Administration and Treasurer at Johns Hopkins. He returned to Berkeley in 1970 and served as Vice Chancellor of Administration until his retirement in 1982. Upon his retirement he received the Berkeley Citation, U.C. Berkeley's highest honor. The California Alumni Association awarded him the Alumni Citation for excellence in service and he was named a Berkeley Fellow in 2003, an honor given to a select group for extraordinary service to the University.

Robert Kerley is survived by his beloved wife Betty whom he met at Berkeley and married in 1975 at the Chancellor's residence. He also leaves his children Kathleen James, Maureen Douglas, Barbara Neill, William Kerley and his step-children Katherine Strehl and William Strehl. He also leaves 10 beloved grandchildren . . . Adriana, Allison, Andrew, Brent, Carolyn, Cecily, Christina, Jake, Joseph and Meredith.

Robert Kerley was a member of the Board of Regents of John F. Kennedy University, a member and Chair of the National Association of Colleges and Universities, as well as a member of the Council on Higher Education. He was a founding member and Chair of the governing board of the Center for Independent Living in Berkeley, the first group run by and for people with disabilities, and an advisor to Alta Bates Medical Center.

It has been a personal privilege to have known Mr. Kerley's step- daughter for many years. Her integrity and commitment to public service are an eloquent statement about her, as well as her father.

Mr. Speaker, I ask my colleagues to join me in honoring this good and great American and in extending our deepest sympathy to his family. Robert Kerley contributed greatly to our community and our country, and in doing so, made us a stronger and better nation.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to honor an extraordinary woman and distinguished labor leader, Linda Gregory, on the occasion of the San Mateo County Central Labor Council honoring her at their Annual COPE Banquet on August 18, 2006.

Linda Gregory was born in Seattle, Washington and as a young child moved with her family to Sacramento, California, where she was raised in a working class family. When she was 18, Linda married Richard, and together they had four children: Robyn, Aaron, Sarah, and Benjamin.

Mrs. Gregory's passion for social reform began early in life when her husband, a Sacramento social worker, went on strike. At the time, there was no law that recognized public employee unions or the right to collectively bargain. Richard and 300 other employees lost their jobs, and this experience had a profound effect on the rest of the Gregory's personal and professional lives.

In 1968, Linda began her career in the public sector. She first worked as a junior clerk for Santa Clara County where she became an active member in SEIU Local 715.

Linda Gregory rose through the ranks at SEIU Local 715. She began as a Shop Steward which motivated her involvement with political action. Because of her exceptional leadership abilities, she became an officer of the local union and she was later hired as a Research Director.

In 1975, Linda Gregory began working as a Business Agent for AFSCME Council 57. She has held the position of Associate Director for decades, representing public employees working for the County, City and hospitals. Throughout her AFSCME career Linda Gregory has not only represented employees, she has also negotiated hundreds of contracts and conducted strategic planning meetings for AFSCME local unions throughout Northern California.

One of her greatest achievements while working for AFSCME was the comparable pay campaign. The goal of the campaign was to provide equal pay to people with different job titles based on their value to their employer, regardless of any gender predominance in such positions. Because of Linda Gregory's leadership, dedication and hard work, California public employees were the first in the nation to earn comparable pay for comparable work.

Linda Gregory has devoted almost three decades of her life to helping the American worker. In addition to her position at Council 57, she is also the President of the San Mateo Labor Council where she has been active for over twenty years and held an executive position since the late 1970's.

Mr. Speaker, I ask my colleagues to join me in honoring a national treasure, an exemplary American and a special friend. As the San Mateo County Central Labor Council celebrates the achievements of Linda Gregory at their 27th Annual C.O.P.E. banquet, we extend to her our best wishes as well as our gratitude for all she has accomplished for our region, our nation, and the American worker. Her leadership has set the gold standard for workers, and because of her enlightened leadership, we are a better community and a stronger country.