Floor Statements

I thank the distinguished ranking member of the Rules Committee.

My colleagues, this debate today and this rule on the bill is a debate about the past or a pathway to the future. This bill, I can't believe it, that in the 21st century we are going to divide up the country on access to the haves and the have-nots.

All we have to do is to look at the history of cable, of the cable industry in our country. They invested billions and billions of dollars to build out everywhere, and the American people won, as did the cable industry. And I applaud that. So what does this bill do? It says, under the new rules, you build out, but you don't have to build out everywhere. You don't have to build out everywhere. We know what will happen as a result of that.

And you know what is in the bill? If you live in a neighborhood where you are not going to have access to this, guess what you can do, Mr. and Mrs. America? You, on your own, can go to the FCC. Is that a joke or what? Although, it is more than a joke, it is an insult, and it is not the way to go.

Ever since I have come to the Congress, I have worked to expand and protect the Internet. So where are we going with this bill? The big telcos are coming in and saying, we have a better idea. On the information superhighway, we are going to have a toll road and we are going to charge and charge mightily on that.

Well, you know what, Members of Congress? We all have cable in our districts. We all have telephone companies in our districts. But you know what, there are tens of millions of Internet users. So what this bill represents, unfortunately, is the reverse gear.

That is not what America is about. America is the best idea that was ever born, and the Internet has been the imprimatur for hands off, for democratizing information; that everyone gets to use it, small businesses, entrepreneurs, individuals, families, teachers, schools, whomever you are, wherever you are, whatever color you are, and regardless of how much money you have. This bill will damage that.

I urge my colleagues to defeat this rule. This bill should not see daylight. We can do better than this.

Mr. Chairman, I thank the distinguished ranking member of the Telecommunications Subcommittee for yielding me this time.

Mr. Chairman, I want to start out by saying, here we are again. I remember being a conferee on the 1996 telecommunications bill. It does not seem like it was a decade ago, but it was.

That bill, if my colleagues will recall, was designed to create telephone competition for the Baby Bells. But instead, it resulted in the babies eating the mother.

There is something monopolistic in the air here. And if any Member of the House is trying to make up their minds about what to do with this bill, I want to tell you something, if you like monopolies, you will love this bill because they are at it again.

In 1996, they signed onto and said these are the rules that we are going to play by. Local competition, boy, that went out the window.

Then they came on again and wanted something else. Now the telephone companies want to go for the golden goose of the American economy, and that is the Internet.

What should be built into this bill is net neutrality. But I want to say a few other things about the bill. It is flawed in other ways. It really turns local control on its head. Local governments across the country have weighed in. Mayors have said these are not good rules for us.

I came from local government. I have a deep regard for it. We can do much better by the cities and mayors in our communities. We can do much better about the rules in terms of build-out in our country. We should not in the 21st century be drawing lines around who is in and who is out. That is not where America is at its strongest and its best.

This is a flawed bill, and we have to remember, all of us, that the Internet has been the key driver of the American economy. And to have the telecoms come after it and reconfigure it, reshape it to their liking, is something that is an echo of the past, their past behavior. We should not allow that.

So I am urging my colleagues in this general debate to reconsider what it is you are considering because this is not the best legislation for the people of our country. We can do much, much better.

Parliamentary Inquiry

Mr. Chairman, I thank our distinguished ranking member of the Telecommunications Committee in the House. And everyone knows that when he speaks about anything that is related to telecommunications, he knows of what he speaks. And that is why this amendment that bears his name, and I am proud to have my name as a part of this amendment as well, why it is so important.

Now, for people that are listening in to us this evening, what is this debate about? What does the term ``net neutrality'' mean? I think the better way to describe this is what does the Internet look like today? How does it function? What does it represent? What are the opportunities? Who takes advantage of these opportunities? Is anyone discriminated against when they go to use the Internet? Whether it is a small Web company, whether it is an individual user, whether it is a university, a library, a school, seniors in the senior center, those that are at home, those of us in Congress, our staff, it is not discriminatory. It is open. Everyone has equal access to it.

So what is this debate about? The telephone companies, and let's face it, if they really were in charge of the future, they would have allowed cell phones, and they didn't. I mean, these people are really part of the past, I am sorry to say. So what this is is a profound change to the Internet.

What will the change be? The telephone companies have come to the Congress and said, change the rules. Rewrite the rules. We want to be able to offer our own tier, our own speed and charge for it. I think that this is flawed, deeply flawed. And I think if we move in this direction, we will be moving away from the future. This debate is really all about the future, the future of the Internet and what we want it to look like.

Our Republican friends have done some real heavy lifting here. Some Democrats too, but I will tell you something. I take my hat off to the Republicans. They have done everything for the telephone companies, everything, at a cost to what is one of the greatest sources of pride of America, a free and open Internet that is accessible to everyone. It has worked. We are the envy of the world as a result of it. We should not tamper with it. Vote for net neutrality.

Mr. Speaker, once again, we have before us legislation to open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) to drilling.

My question is: What problem are we trying to solve?

If this is an attempt to lower gas prices, then this bill won't do the job. According to a July 2005 report of the non-partisan Energy Information Administration of the Department of Energy, Arctic oil will reduce the price of a gallon of gas by less than a penny.

If this is an attempt to lessen our dependence on foreign oil, then this bill is not the solution. Whether we drill in the Arctic or not, U.S. dependence on foreign oil is projected to grow. The simple fact is that the U.S. has less than 3 percent of the world's oil reserves yet our country is responsible for 25 percent of the world's annual petroleum consumption.

This bill will rip apart a 1.5-million-acre wildlife refuge for a 6 month supply of oil.

The proponents claim that the drilling will be limited to a mere 2,000 acre area. As a point of comparison, the 100-mile-long, 12-lane New Jersey turnpike covers 1,800 acres. That limitation applies only to where the drilling will occur, not to supporting infrastructure, including roads. In addition, no requirement exists for the 2,000 acres to be contiguous. Drilling stations can be spread throughout the refuge, dotting the landscape.

Mr. Speaker, we have other choices. Choices that will preserve sensitive wilderness areas, reduce air pollution, and end our dependence on Middle Eastern oil. We should be improving the fuel economy of cars and trucks, which stands at the same level today as it was 20 years ago. We have the technology today to raise the standard for automobiles by 10 percent over the next decade, saving 1.1 million barrels of oil per day and reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 85 million metric tons a year.

House Democrats developed an Innovation Agenda, which was introduced last November. In it, we proposed cutting petroleum-based fuels by rapidly expanding production and distribution of synthetic and bio- based fuels such as ethanol derived from cellulosic sources, and by deploying new engine technologies for fuel-flexible, hybrid, plug-in hybrid and biodiesel vehicles. This is not far-off technology. It is at hand, and if we promote it now, we can end our dependence on Middle Eastern oil in a decade and we can do it without drilling in the Arctic or other sensitive areas.

These are the steps we should be taking, not the destructive policies which this bill represents. I urge my colleagues to reject the bill.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to honor St. Joseph's School of the Sacred Heart, on the occasion of the celebration of its centennial on May 20, 2006.

Emilie Blain Donohoe, an alumna of Sacred Heart in St. Louis, strongly believed in the educational mission of the Religious of the Sacred Heart. In 1904, she made an offer to them to fund a new school if they would agree to run it. In 1906, St. Joseph's School in Atherton, California opened its doors to 74 students. Then and now the school is guided by the spirit of the foundress of the Religious of the Sacred Heart, St. Madeleine Sophie Barat, who said, ``Let us respect childhood; let us honor the soul of that small creature of God.'' It was her vision of teaching children of all social levels that inspired Emilie Blain Donohoe to fund a tuition-free school.

One hundred years later, St. Joseph's School of the Sacred Heart is considered the ``gold standard'' in K through 8 education. It is led by capable leaders and a faculty headed by Cee Salberg, Principal of the Preschool and Kindergarten, and Karen Eshoo, Principal of grades 1 through 8. Karen is my daughter and a graduate of St. Joseph's (Class of 1983) and Sacred Heart Preparatory (Class of 1987) and as such; exemplifies the best of a Sacred Heart education. The enrollment today is 520 children from Preschool through 8th grade. St. Joseph's has undergone many changes in 100 years but its mission remains the same: the development of the whole child spiritually, intellectually, emotionally and physically.

A St. Joseph's education represents the finest in academics . . . serious in principles, and rich in the spirit of life and love. The five Goals of the Sacred Heart Network inform everything that is done at St. Joseph's. They guide the community in a genuinely integrated approach to learning which is spiritually nurturing, academically challenging, and produces students who are committed to social justice in a spirit of Christian community. St. Joseph's students are continually challenged to support each other, while at the same time achieving their own personal goals.

Mr. Speaker, I ask my colleagues to join me in honoring an extraordinary school, St. Joseph's of the Sacred Heart, as it celebrates one hundred years of educating our children. I pay tribute to the Religious of the Sacred Heart for their inspired work of educating generations of children and my congratulations to the entire Sacred Heart community of students, teachers, staff, alumni, parents and donors who have all helped to shape responsible citizens of our country. May the next century be marked by the excellence and achievements of the first 100 years at St. Joseph's School of the Sacred Heart.

Mr. Chairman, I rise in support of this bipartisan amendment to retain the moratoria on drilling in protected offshore areas of the United States.

If we don't approve this amendment, we will undo a 25-year legacy of protecting the coast of my State of California and other States from the damage that can be done by drilling.

Three Presidents . . . George Bush, Bill Clinton, and George W. Bush, have supported the drilling moratoria in sensitive coastal areas of the United States.

The Governor of the State of California has written to Members of the California delegation to express his support of the moratorium and he opposes the language in this bill. He wrote:

``[T]he bill's provisions would allow drilling to begin

just three miles from our coast. Rather than watching the sun

set on the western horizon each day, millions of Californians

and visitors will now see grotesque oil platforms in plain

sight. I urge the Delegation to oppose these provisions and

work to defeat them during the House debate. California's

beautiful coastline is an integral part of our culture, our

heritage, and our economy. Putting it at risk would be an

absolute travesty.''

The argument we're hearing is that we need to develop domestic natural gas supplies to bring down prices and avoid dependence on foreign sources of energy.

This argument is a masquerade.

It's well known that there cannot be selective drilling for natural gas. Drilling is drilling, and where gas is found, oil is also found. Last fall, the Director of the Mineral Management Service, Johnnie Burton, said so. He said:

Natural gas seldom comes totally by itself. It has some

liquids with it. Sometimes it is oil, sometimes it is very

refined oil . . .

So lifting the moratorium on gas drilling will also effectively lift the ban on oil drilling.

Mr. Chairman, if we're concerned about prices and security, we need to begin requiring the use of renewable fuels and improving the fuel economy of our automobiles. We shouldn't tear our oceans apart and ruin our coastlines.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to honor Bernard L. Schwartz, a distinguished American who retired in March 2006 as Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer of Loral Space and Communications, Inc., posts he has held since the company was founded in 1996. He served in the same posts at the predecessor company, Loral Corporation, since 1972.

Loral Space and Communications designs and manufactures large, geostationary telecommunications satellites, and through its Skynet subsidiary provides a wide range of satellite services. Under Mr. Schwartz's wise leadership, Loral Space and Communications has played a central role in the development of the satellite industry and a central role in satellite services for our nation.

Bernard Schwartz is a legend on Wall Street and in the defense industry. He is highly regarded for his work in the fields of economic growth, industrial policy, technology and national security. He gives generously of his time, his talents and resources to many organizations to further examine these topics. Among his extraordinary contributions are the endowment of academic chairs for the study of economic policy and international affairs at New School University and Johns Hopkins University, as well as establishing a fellowship program in public policy at the New America Foundation. He is a Trustee of New York University Hospitals Center where he established the Neurointerventional Radiology Center, and he funded a distinguished chair in urologic oncology at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. He established chairs at the Brookings Institution and at Tel Aviv University and founded a Communication Institute at Baruch College where he serves as a Trustee. Mr. Schwartz serves on the Board of the New York Historical Society, and as Vice-Chair of the New York Film Society. He is also a Trustee of Third Way and the Democratic Leadership Council.

Mr. Schwartz, a graduate of City College of New York, was awarded an honorary Doctorate of Science by his alma mater. He and his wife live in New York City and have two daughters, three granddaughters and one grandson.

Mr. Speaker, I ask my colleagues to join me in honoring Bernard Schwartz for his extraordinary leadership and countless contributions to our nation's economy and its well-being. He has taken his citizenship seriously and given back to the country he loves so much. We salute him for his leadership of Loral Space and Communications, which serves the interests of our country and for his continuing patriotism which makes him a national treasure.

Madam Speaker, I am very pleased to welcome a special group to the Capitol this morning. It is the season where so many students come to Washington to see their government in action and to visit the historic sites in Washington. This week the students of St. Joseph's School of the Sacred Heart in Atherton, California, are here.

The school is over 100 years old. It was founded by the religious of the Sacred Heart, the beloved religious of the Sacred Heart, and the traditions and their mission of excellence in education and the formation of the character and the spiritual formation of students continues today. How proud I am that they are here; how proud I am of the teachers; how proud I am of the principal of St. Joseph's at Sacred Heart, my daughter, Karen Eshoo.

Welcome, students, and enjoy your memorable and historic visit to our Capitol. May what you see and what you experience remain with you for a lifetime.

Mr. Speaker, on rollcall No. 102, I inadvertently cast a ``yea'' vote when I intended to cast a ``nay'' vote.

Mr. Chairman, I thank our distinguished colleague for yielding.

Mr. Chairman, this bill provides the brave men and women of our intelligence community with the tools they need to conduct their constant silent struggle to guarantee our national security. They deserve it. They place their lives on the line every day, and they should have these resources provided to them.

What I am deeply disappointed about in this bill is that we are not using this opportunity to crack down on the administration's reckless and unlawful abuses in the field of intelligence gathering.

For the first time in our Nation's history, we are living under an administration that asserts it has the right, without statutory or judicial review, to eavesdrop on the electronic communications of American citizens. The NSA wiretapping program, revealed last December and acknowledged by the President himself, represents for the first time ever the completely warrantless surveillance of U.S. citizens, an unheard of breach of our rights guaranteed under the Constitution.

We have learned from news reports that the Counter-Intelligence Field Activity, CIFA, part of the Department of Defense, has illegally collected and retained information on Americans, including several in my district in California. Worse, they did this on the basis of protected first amendment activity, notably the exercise of free speech about military recruiting at the University of California at Santa Cruz.

When I learned of this, I was able to investigate and learn that the reports had been improperly entered into and retained in a Department of Defense database. I objected, and the DOD has promised in writing to correct the situation and issue guidance to employees to prevent future abuses. I am pleased with their attention to the problem, and I hope that we have turned the corner with CIFA.

This has not been the case with the President's NSA wiretapping program. Not only does the program fall outside the statutory guidelines of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, but the President continues, in my view, to violate the law by failing to brief the full Intelligence Committee about the program.

Our Nation was founded on the premise of three coequal branches of government, providing checks and balances on the abuse of power by any one body. Yet this administration continues to act without regard for congressional or judicial guidelines. This is not only un-American, it is dangerous, and we have a responsibility to put an end to it.

I offered an amendment to this bill in committee which sought only to determine the cost of the President's program. It was a reasonable and measured attempt at meaningful oversight. It didn't seek operational details or names of targets, but just the most basic oversight questions, what is in the budget. It was defeated. When the vote is cast on this, Members are voting in the dark.

I offered another amendment last night which was rejected by the Rules Committee. That was even more benign. It simply expressed the sense of Congress that all electronic surveillance must comply with the Constitution and FISA.

This bill has shortcomings, Mr. Chairman, and I regret that it does because I think that it is not good for our country.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to honor an extraordinary American, Eli Segal, who passed away on February 20, 2006 at the age of 63.

Eli Segal was born in Brooklyn, New York, in 1943. He graduated Brandeis University in 1964 and received a law degree from the University of Michigan in 1967.

Mr. Segal began a distinguished political career in 1968 when he joined Senator Eugene McCarthy's presidential campaign. Though Senator McCarthy lost, Mr. Segal was not deterred and served in key positions in several Democratic presidential campaigns, culminating with President Clinton's 1992 campaign, which was Mr. Segal's first campaign victory.

Mr. Segal then served as Assistant to the President in the Clinton White House, and within months established the Corporation for National Service, better known now as AmeriCorps. Thanks to his skilled management, the once controversial program has become an acclaimed success, and 400,000 young Americans have been enrolled in the program and helped to improve their communities and their country. Mr. Segal also took an active interest in City Year, another service program he eventually chaired. At the request of Nelson Mandela, he helped launch City Year in South Africa.

In 1996, when President Clinton signed welfare reform into law, Mr. Segal took on the challenge of creating opportunities for former welfare recipients who were required to work. He began asking American companies to make commitments to hire former welfare recipients, and his ``welfare-to-work partnership'' grew from five companies to twenty thousand. As he did with AmeriCorps, Mr. Segal left a great legacy in his contribution to the success of welfare reform.

Mr. Segal is survived by his wife Phyllis, his son Jonathan and his daughter Mora, two grandchildren, and his brother Alan.

Mr. Speaker, I ask my colleagues to join me in honoring an outstanding American and an extraordinary public servant, and extending our deepest sympathy to his family. He touched the lives of many Americans and changed our nation for the better.

Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to the Republican Budget Resolution and in favor of the Substitute offered by Representative Spratt.

Despite record-breaking deficits and a skyrocketing national debt, the Budget Resolution before us continues the Majority's `spend now/pay later' policy which has gotten us into a historic fiscal mess.

Former House Republican Leader Dick Armey accurately described the Republican's fiscal management when he told the Wall Street Journal in 2004, ``I'm sitting here, and I'm upset about the deficit, and I'm upset about spending. There's no way I can pin that on Democrats. Republicans own this town now.''

I think it's important to note that there's always been a choice. Every year for the last 5 years, Democrats have offered alternate plans to balance the budget. Every year we've been defeated by the Majority.

Over that time, the Majority's budgets have turned a projected 10- year surplus of $5.6 trillion into a projected 10-year deficit of nearly $4 trillion, posting record annual deficits over that period. The single largest cause of this turnaround has been the tax cuts enacted in 2001 and 2003. The tax cuts, by themselves, represent approximately half of the deficits we've accumulated since 2001.

What we see again in this year's Republican budget is more of the same. Passage of their budget will increase the deficit by $348 billion in Fiscal Year 2007 and by a total of $1.1 trillion over the next 5 years. Although it never achieves a balanced budget, this Republican plan insists on more tax cuts.

That's not the whole story. This budget masks the true cost of the deficit because it continues to spend every cent of the Social Security Trust Fund. Without dipping into the Trust Fund, the Republicans would post a deficit of more than $600 billion in Fiscal Year 2007.

The costs of the debt and deficit are huge. In Fiscal Year 2007, the United States will spend $243 billion to cover the interest payments on the national credit card. This represents the fastest-growing part of the budget.

The Republican budget also presents the false claim that its spending cuts will reduce the deficit. Over the next 5 years, the proposal cuts $5 billion from mandatory programs (such as Food Stamps and Unemployment Insurance) and $127 billion in domestic discretionary programs, such as education, veterans benefits, environmental protection, and scientific health care research, but instead of paying down the debt, these alleged `savings' will partially pay for $228 billion in tax cuts.

We've seen this bait-and-switch before. Just two short months ago, the President signed into law the so-called Deficit Reduction Act. The $40 billion in cuts in this legislation came from reductions in student aid programs ($12 billion), Medicaid ($7 billion), and Medicare ($6.4 billion). At nearly the same time, the House passed a tax cut bill at a cost of $56 billion. Provisions in this bill will give anyone who earns $1 million or more a year an average tax break of $32,000.

The cuts in services will be painful and unwise. Over the next 5 years, this budget will cut veterans' healthcare services by $6 billion, education by $45.3 billion, healthcare by $18.1 billion, and environmental protection by $25 billion. Once again, these spending reductions will cover only part of the $228 billion in additional tax cuts, guaranteeing deficits for at least the next decade.

The net result of this budget are more tax cuts for the wealthy, a reduction in social services for working families, and never-ending debt for future generations. This fiscal policy is not only unsustainable, it's immoral.

As in past years, we have a choice. The Substitute offered by Mr. Spratt reduces the deficit year-to-year and reaches a balanced budget by 2012. The Substitute re-establishes pay-as-you-go (PAYGO) rules so that any new tax cuts and any new spending are paid for by spending cuts or revenue increases.

The Substitute also proposes $160.5 billion more than the House Republican budget for key areas, including education, health, veterans, and environmental protection while maintaining funding for defense and providing more funding for key homeland security priorities, such as port security.

Within the context of a balanced budget, the Substitute provides funding for tax relief for low and middle income taxpayers.

I urge my colleagues to oppose this budget and instead support the Democratic alternative that will restore fiscal responsibility and honor the best of who we are as Americans.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of H.R. 3127, the Darfur Peace and Accountability Act, legislation aimed at stopping the ongoing genocide in the Darfur region of Sudan.

As a longtime cosponsor of this critical legislation, I'm pleased that this bill has been brought before us today for a vote. With as many as 400,000 killed by the orchestrated violence in Darfur, it's imperative that the U.S. act quickly and decisively to put an end to the crisis.

H.R. 3127 goes after the individuals both inside and outside the Sudanese government who are responsible for the ongoing bloodshed by directing the President to seize the assets of and refuse future visas to any individual (or their family members) responsible for acts of genocide, war crimes, or crimes against humanity in Sudan. It also forbids any U.S. port from accepting any goods or cargo from Sudanese ships should the Sudanese government continue to fail to take steps to resolve the crisis. Furthermore, in order to give military protection for victims on the ground, H.R. 3127 authorizes the President to provide assistance for an expanded peacekeeping force in Sudan; the African Union Mission in Sudan, AMIS, and directs the President to seek NATO reinforcement of AMIS, upon the request of the African Union.

Last month I voted for and the House passed the Capuano Amendment to the FY2006 Supplemental Appropriations Bill for Iraq and Other International Activities, which added $50 million in funding to expand the African Union's peacekeeping operations in Darfur. This critical funding will help the African Union forces provide humanitarian relief and protection until further assistance arrives from the U.S. and the international community.

For the past three years I have voted for and cosponsored legislation condemning the atrocities in Darfur and appropriately labeling them ``genocide.'' Both Houses of Congress have concurred with this assessment, but little has been effective in stopping the killings and displacement. We need to do more, and we need to come up with new methods to target those perpetuating the violence. The provisions within the Darfur Peace and Accountability Act will give us a fresh set of tools to apply to the situation and deliver assistance to those who need it. I urge all of my colleagues to support H.R. 3127.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to honor an extraordinary American, Eli Segal, who passed away on February 20, 2006 at the age of 63.

Eli Segal was born in Brooklyn, NY, in 1943. He graduated from Brandeis University in 1964 and received a law degree from the University of Michigan in 1967.

Mr. Segal began his political involvement in 1968 when he joined Senator Eugene McCarthy's presidential campaign. Even though Senator McCarthy lost, Mr. Segal was not deterred. He went on to serve in key positions on several Democratic presidential campaigns, culminating with the 1992 campaign of President Clinton, which was Eli Segal's first presidential campaign victory.

Mr. Segal served as Assistant to the President in the Clinton White House, and within months established the Corporation for National Service, now known as AmeriCorps. Because of his superb skills and management, the once controversial program became an acclaimed success. Four hundred thousand young Americans enrolled in the program and helped to improve their communities and their country. Mr. Segal also took an active interest in City Year, another service program he eventually chaired. At the request of Nelson Mandela, he helped launch City Year in South Africa.

When President Clinton signed welfare reforms into law in 1996, Mr. Segal took on the challenge of creating opportunities for former welfare recipients who were now required to work. He began asking American companies to make commitments to hire former welfare recipients, and his ``welfare-to-work partnership'' grew from five companies to 20,000. As he did with AmeriCorps, Mr. Segal left a great legacy with the success of welfare reform.

Mr. Segal is survived by his wife Phyllis, his son Jonathan, his daughter Mora, two grandchildren, and his brother Alan.

Mr. Speaker, I ask my colleagues to join me in honoring an outstanding American and an extraordinary public servant. We extend our deepest sympathy to Eli Segal's family and we pay tribute to a life filled with values and contributions to the country he loved and served so well. He made our Nation stronger and I consider myself blessed to have known him and worked with him.

Mr. Chairman, I rise today in opposition to this bill, the largest emergency appropriations measure to ever be considered by the House of Representatives. I do so with great reluctance because there are several positive aspects to the bill, including resources for our dedicated troops. Despite these reservations, I oppose this bill because the Administration and the Majority in Congress have failed to provide adequate oversight and accountability for our operations in Iraq.

Mr. Chairman, in four days we will mark the third anniversary of this tragic war, a war that

I opposed from the beginning and which has already cost our country over $400 billion. Without a strategy for success or an end in sight, the Congressional Budget Office predicts the price tag for military costs alone will reach $600 billion by the end of this decade. The added costs of long-term healthcare for our veterans, reconstruction assistance, and economic aid will of course raise this figure exponentially, prompting some of our Nation's best economists to predict that the long-term costs of this war will rise as high as two trillion dollars. Meanwhile, the loss of our best and brightest young people can never be measured.

Going into war without the approval and support of the international community and without a plan for the post-war occupation period has resulted in a Nation less secure now than at the end of major combat operations. Despite the heroic efforts of our military, and the hundreds of billions of dollars poured into Iraq, it is now on the brink of civil war. We've seen how disastrously this administration's strategy, or lack thereof, has played out in Iraq, and yet we continue to circumvent the normal budget process, putting hundreds of billions of dollars on the national credit card without any plan for success, any plan to begin the process of bringing our troops home, or any plan to turn Iraq over to the Iraqi people.

Mr. Chairman, I voted in favor of our last emergency supplemental bill because, among other things, the bill instructed the Department of Defense to provide a detailed report to Congress of its military expenditures in Iraq and Afghanistan to finally allow us to track how the Administration was spending the taxpayer's money. Despite this language, the General Accounting Office reported in November numerous problems in DOD's processes for recording and reporting costs for operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. As a result, the GAO found that neither DOD nor Congress can reliably know how much the war is costing, nor the details on how appropriated funds are being spent. The facts are not being made available and Congress is operating and appropriating without them.

Congress is not fulfilling its responsibility to act as the steward of the National Treasury. I, along with several colleagues on both sides of the aisle, have cosponsored legislation that would restore oversight and accountability to our budget process. Several of my colleagues have called for hearings and investigations into how funds are being spent in Iraq. These efforts have been met with near-total resistance by the Majority leadership in the House, and by the administration. Time and again we who are elected to keep close watch over spending are being denied the necessary tools to do our jobs.

The good in this bill is increased funding to address the crisis in Darfur, our fellow Americans affected by the tragedy of Hurricane Katrina and the language preventing the Dubai Ports deal from moving forward. I've supported these efforts in the past and were these provisions to be considered properly under normal budget procedures, I would support them.

Whether or not Members support the war in Iraq, it's becoming clearer day by day that the President's policies are unsustainable. Without a change of direction and a clear plan for success, I cannot in good conscience continue to pass off trillions of dollars to our children and grandchildren to fund this debacle.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to congratulate Stanford University and Stanford Linear Accelerator on the dedication of the Kavli Institute for Particle Astrophysics and Cosmology on March 17, 2006. The institute is dedicated to advancing the understanding of the cosmos in its search for ``dark matter'' and ``dark energy,'' which compose an estimated 96 percent of the universe.

This was all made possible by Fred Kavli, a world renowned physicist, through his extraordinary generosity and vision.

The following are his inspirational remarks at the dedication of the institute which bears his name.

It is a special pleasure to be here today for the

dedication of this beautiful building in the service of

science.

First I want to remember and pay tribute to Leland Stanford

and his wife, Jane, who laid the physical and spiritual

foundation for this great university, and who in their

foresight provided the ample land on which this building

stands today.

We owe our gratitude to the many people who have been

instrumental in making the Kavli Institute for Astrophysics

and Cosmology and the building come about, and give special

recognition to President Hennessy, Provost Etchemendy, and

the Department of Energy, represented by Robin

Staffin. We appreciate the capable work of Roger Blandford,

Jonathan Dorfan, and Steven Kahn, who are the prime engines

in this effort, and we recognize Steven Chu for his

contribution in starting the Institute.

We truly have a great building on a wonderful site, and I

want to recognize the architectural firm of EHHD for a

beautiful and functional design.

The building will be an important focal point for the

activity of the Kavli Institute for Particle Astrophysics and

Cosmology. It is especially important since the Institute is

a joint effort of Stanford and SLAC, and the new building

will help to integrate the scientific effort of the two

institutions, and will be a common meeting ground for

participants from each as well as for visitors from many

other institutions.

The prominent location is symbolic of the central role it

will play in this function.

But the building cannot fulfill its function without

content, and we are especially thankful to Pierre Schwob who

donated the computer center, and Pehong Chen who donated the

Chair for the director of the Kavli Institute.

The Kavli Foundation supports basic science because we

believe in its long-range benefit to humanity. We are looking

for benefits which may lie far into the future, benefits that

may be hard to predict, but as we look at the past, the

benefits of science have been proven over time. The fruits of

research are not always immediate and are often not

predictable. Often the benefits are the result of

unpredictable outcomes of an exploration that was initially

motivated purely by intellectual curiosity.

Heisenberg, Schrodinger, and Dirac were not motivated by

practical applications when they and their colleagues

developed the quantum theory of matter, and yet, their

research led to, among other results, an understanding of

electronic conduction in solid state materials, which led to

the invention of the transistor, which made possible the

development of integrated circuits, computers, the internet,

and the IT world in which we live today.

I believe there is a strong relationship between the level

of a nation's science and its technological and industrial

leadership in today's high-tech world.

For many years, Bell Laboratories was the strongest and

best scientific research institution in the world. The

research from Bell Labs was freely publicized throughout the

world, but who was to take primary advantage of it to

build a high technology industry? It was the home country,

the United States of America. It is not just a matter of

knowing the theory, it is the foundation that is built

step by step by scientists, the engineers, the

technicians, the suppliers, the scientific infrastructure,

and it is the whole underlying knowledge base that

transfers pure science into industrial benefits. I believe

that without the Bell Labs, the U.S. would not be the

strong world leader we are today in high technology.

Similarly, the Silicon Valley would not be among the very

top world technological centers without Stanford and SLAC.

It is well known and widely accepted that investments in

research yield enormous benefits to society through improved

standard of living, better health, and stronger national

security.

I believe that basic science is the primary driver for

human progress and increased knowledge about the human being,

nature, and the universe.

It is for these reasons that we must be willing to make

investments with a long horizon, and it is important that our

leaders in government duly recognize the importance of our

scientific standing in providing a superior standard of

living. Sacrifices that we make today will build our future

of tomorrow.

The benefits of basic science can be hard to predict, but

based upon the past, the future will be more spectacular than

we can ever imagine.

And to the scientists I want to say, I envy you out there

looking back to the beginning of time, playing among the

galaxies. You guys are really good packing 100 billion

galaxies with a hundred billion stars each in the space of a

subatomic particle, but when you tell me there are 11

dimensions, I like to remind you of Paul Dirac's statement

that said ``physical laws should have mathematical beauty and

simplicity.''

Today we are grateful to have this beautiful facility with

an outstanding team of scientists backed up by two great

institutions. I am confident that you will make new

discoveries and advance our understanding of the cosmos.

Let us dedicate this house of science to take us on a ride

among the stars to answer some of our most fundamental

questions.

Mr. Speaker, I ask my colleagues to join me in paying tribute to a remarkable scientific endeavor, the Kavli Institute for Particle Astrophysics and Cosmology at SLAC, and to extend to its creator, Fred Kavli, our gratitude for his leadership, his vision and his generosity.