Floor Statements

Offered By: Mr. Weiner

Amendment No. 27: At the end of the bill (before the short

title), insert the following:

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to celebrate the 150th anniversary of the Polytechnic Preparatory Country Day School. The school is a pillar of academic excellence in Brooklyn, New York. It is a true privilege to acknowledge the great strides Poly Prep has made over the years since it first opened its doors in 1854.

Since its inception as the Brooklyn Collegiate and Polytechnic Institute, the Polytechnic

Preparatory Country Day School has immersed its students in outstanding academic programs and provided a strong, supportive community. Like New York City, the school has opened its doors to students from all over the world, representing an array of cultures, languages and traditions. That commitment to diversity speaks volumes about Poly Prep's illustrious history.

The school's 150th anniversary provides a hallmark for reflection on Poly Prep's tireless efforts to provide a diverse and educationally sound environment which has led its students to academic success. Therefore, on behalf of the U.S. House of Representatives, I congratulate the Polytechnic Preparatory Country Day School on the occasion of its 150th anniversary--its Sesquicentennial--for its efforts toward educational excellence and providing an environment that is as diverse and rich in experience and tradition as New York City itself.

Madam Chairman, I offer an amendment.

Madam Chairman, pictured on this chart is an Asian long- horned beetle. This is one of the many pests that are under the responsibility of APHIS, the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service. This is an insect that bores its way into trees, primarily in Illinois, in the northeast, and kills them.

There is no way to stop this pest except by cutting down the tree. And we in New York and in New Jersey and Illinois have had to chop down a lot of them.

What my amendment will do is to increase the funding for APHIS, to bring it up to the level that the Bush administration proposed in their preliminary budget. It is estimated that the amendment that we are offering today with the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. McCotter) and my colleagues from New York and others around the country, by increasing by $19 million, we will wind up preventing more than $700 billion worth of damage to trees throughout the country.

This is not just a problem that will be solved for the Asian long- horned beetle. If you have the emerald ash borer in Indiana, Ohio or Michigan, or in the Pacific Coast, or suffer from sudden oak death in California or Oregon, or are dealing with the glassy-winged sharpshooter in California, or of course boll weevils throughout the South, all of these are pests which are having a dramatic impact on our economy, or is having a budget cut in this round to an unacceptable level.

First let me say of the chairman and the ranking member, they are doing a lot with less and less. The staffs of both the minority and majority side should be commended for taking a very small allocation and trying to make it as best they can. However, what my amendment will do is it will take a program that essentially does the computing and data processing part of the Agriculture Department and moves it into dealing with these pests.

Obviously, I would like not to have to cut any part of the Agriculture Department, but this is an offset that works. We found, when this House weighed into this debate in the past and increased funding through an amendment on the floor, we wound up having a substantial positive impact. When the Asian long-horn beetle was first kind of discovered in 1999 here in the east coast, there were 2,500 trees that were affected. It was down to just 66 in 2004. Unfortunately, that downward trend has recently been reversed.

This, the House bill that we are considering today, allocates $22 million less for APHIS than President Bush had requested. The Nature Conservancy, which studies the impact of pests like the Asian long-horn beetles, says that we really need a $44 million increase. We are not going to be able to get a $44 million increase in this bill.

What the amendment does is try to reach a point that we at least start to win the battle again, start to lead to a reduction in the amount of trees that are infected, not only by the Asian long-horn beetle, but by the emerald ash borer and others that I mentioned.

There is hardly a State in the Union that has not found its trees impacted by these pernicious insects. APHIS has been an effective way to reverse the course. A combination of research and remediation has proven that the dollars spent on these things turn out to be extraordinarily helpful. Whether it is the cactus moth or the gypsy moth in Washington-Oregon, I would urge my colleagues in virtually every State of the Union to look to see if you have an insect that represents a pest that is impacting not only the trees in the abstract sense of our environment, but also our economy.

There is hardly a State in the Union that would not benefit from this amendment. As I said, I believe that the ranking member, the gentlewoman from Connecticut (Ms. DeLauro), and the chairman, the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Bonilla), deserve great credit for how they have done more with less. We are making a minor change to increase the funding for APHIS by $19 million to allow even more work.

The gentleman from Michigan (Mr. McCotter), who is sponsoring this amendment with some of us in the New York and New Jersey delegation, is detained. He is expected on the floor shortly, but he represents, as so many other Members do, a bipartisan effort to make sure that insects like this are vanquished once and for all.

Madam Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

Madam Chairman, I move to strike the last word.

Madam Chairman, I commend the gentleman for acknowledging what I think we all should in the last amendment, that we are not giving funding, sufficient funding to this APHIS account.

Now the gentleman's amendment does not speak to plum pox because that would be legislating, so I would encourage the gentleman to support my amendment which we just voted on here because it would permit plum pox. That was one of the many pests on the list that would be increased in that case.

But I commend the gentleman. He is exactly right. Just like in the gentleman's district, in the gentleman's State, just like in New York, just like in Louisiana with imported fire ants, just like in Texas with the Mexican fruit fly, just like in California with the Mediterranean fruit fly, this is an underfunded area. We will never get it what they probably should ultimately get, but at least we should give them a little more, and I think the gentleman is exactly right.

Plum pox, Asian long horn beetle, this is another reason why I hope all of my colleagues will support the amendment that we just voted down and will be having a recorded vote on later.

Madam Chairman, reserving the right to object, I would ask the author of the amendment that would increase by $1 million, does he intend to support the amendment that was just passed that would increase the account that he wants to solve the problem in by $19 million?

I yield to the gentleman from Pennsylvania.

Madam Chairman, I withdraw my reservation of objection.

Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.

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

First of all, I think this represents the final amendment on the bill and gives me another chance to offer my thanks to the chairman and ranking member for doing well with a bill that provides far too little funding for the important agriculture programs of this country.

What does this amendment do? My amendment would require that every State in the Union, all of the States, get at least .75 percent of the funding provided for cotton, tobacco, and rice in this bill. Every single State should get .75 percent. Even though 24 States in the Union have no cotton, have no rice, have no tobacco, this amendment would require that .75 percent of the funding be reserved for those States.

Before the chairman has a chance to say it, I will say it for him: It is a preposterous concept. It is a mind-boggling concept, in fact. Why would we allocate funds in an agriculture bill for places like I represent in New York City that have no agriculture programs?

But I say to my colleagues, that is exactly what we recently did in the homeland security bill. We said that we are going to allocate a fixed amount of money in the homeland security bill, notwithstanding the fact that there might be little or no homeland security needs. Did this create a wise funding formula? Well, only if one thinks that Wyoming should have the highest per capita funding in the country for homeland security grants, and California and New York will be one and two for the least per capita.

Now, of course, one would not want to leave Wyoming unprotected, but I believe that having a minimum guarantee in that bill was simply foolish. After all, New York City had been the target of actual terrorism six times between 1993 and 2001. Twice the World Trade Center was attacked. Efforts were foiled to destroy the Holland and Lincoln Tunnels and the GW Bridge. We were a target in the Anthrax attacks, a subway bomb plot and, of course, a mission that was disrupted to blow up the Brooklyn Bridge by al Qaeda in 2003.

I am not saying that we should not find a way to make every city and locality safe. But are we really better off because of this formula that has .75 percent going to every State? Have we not perhaps reached a point that now cities and States are trying to figure out, how the heck do we spend this money? Well, the answer is, yes, we have reached that point.

Madisonville, Texas, population 4,200, I understand one of the nicer places in Texas, used a $30,000 homeland security grant to buy a custom trailer, and I am not making this up, a custom trailer that will be used during the annual October Mushroom Festival for people who are overheated or injured; and it will double, forgive me, no disrespect to the people of Madisonville, Texas intended, it will double as a command center during supposed emergencies should al Qaeda attack Madisonville, Texas.

Now, Mr. Chairman, it would be absurd for my amendment to become law. It would be a mockery of this House to say that every State should get the same amount of tobacco funding even if there are no tobacco farms, the same amount of cotton funding even if there are no cotton farms, and the same amount of funding even if there are no rice farms. It would be absurd. Why, then, do we have other elements of the bill, other elements of our law, other appropriation bills that are allocated that way? It does not make any sense. Is it really the way it should be?

I have to tell my colleagues something. I am going to be magnanimous. I am a representative from Brooklyn and Queens and the beautiful City of New York. We do not have tobacco farms. I will tell my colleagues what I am going to do: Keep your cotton and tobacco subsidy. Keep your agriculture subsidy. We are not farmers, and we are very grateful to the men and women of this country who are. They make it possible for all of us to eat at prices that are extraordinary. We are the envy of the world when it comes to agriculture.

But can we not also agree that when it comes to things that are not so enviable, like the challenge that cities like New York face when dealing with homeland security, maybe, just maybe, my colleagues can be equally magnanimous? Maybe, just maybe, they can say, you know what? Where we have need, where we have threat, we are going to ask for money. Where there is no threat, where there is no need, we are not.

So I would urge my colleagues to vote no on the Weiner amendment, but I would urge my colleagues to keep it in mind the next time we consider homeland security grants.

Mr. Chairman, I, to the relief of everyone, I am sure, yield back the balance of my time.

Point of Order

Mr. Chairman, to paraphrase a line from a movie, I am out of order; this whole House is out of order in the way it allocates homeland security funds. I do not dispute the point of order, and I will yield to the ruling of the Chair.

Mr. Speaker, today the House of Representatives voted to urge the United Nations to take bold action against anti-Semitism and anti-Israel sentiment. I commend my colleagues for keeping the U.N.'s feet to the fire on an issue of such great importance. And I thank Congresswoman Ros-Lehtinen for introducing this bill and for her continued vigilance in support of America's greatest ally in the Middle East.

The U.N. is supposed to be a neutral authority working towards global unity. But in fact, it has helped the enemies of Israel internationalize their war against the Jewish state.

Many people know about the 1975 U.N. resolution equating Zionism with racism. Sadly, that is only 1 of the 322 resolutions condemning Israel that the U.N. has passed since 1948.

The U.N. issued Resolution 476 in 1980 declaring Israel's claim to Jerusalem ``null and void.'' It passed Resolution 487 in 1981 to ``strongly condemn'' Israel for its attack on Iraq's nuclear facility. And in 2003, the U.N. condemned Israel for building its security fences. These are the same fences that have cut suicide bombings by 75% and Israeli fatalities by 55%.

The U.N. is routinely silent on deadly suicide attacks--like the Hamas Passover massacre that killed 30 people at an Israeli hotel. But it will loudly condemn Israel for its military response to such terror. Remarkably, the U.N.'s balance sheet defends countries like Lebanon, Iraq, and Syria, while attacking Israel as a regional aggressor.

This imbalance is unreasonable. But it is hardly the U.N.'s worst masquerading. The U.N. pretends to give a voice to all countries. But when it comes to offering countries a seat on the Security Council, only Israel is barred.

And while 4 of the 7 stage sponsors of terror--Cuba, Libya, Sudan, and Syria--are members of the U.N. Human Rights Commission, Israel cannot even be a candidate. The commission spends 26% of its resolutions condemning Israel, yet Israel doesn't even have a forum to respond.

The news gets worse. The U.N. has decided that its Commission on Human Rights is good enough for all the world's refugees, except the Palestinians. They get their own organization--the U.N. Relief Works Agency (UNRWA).

And instead of being resettled like the rest of the world's 20 million refugees, the Palestinians are kept in camps. It is no surprise that the result has been a breeding ground for violence. More than 48 terrorist operatives have been educated in UNRWA schools. And this past January, the head of UNRWA acknowledged that members of Hamas are on his payroll. Since 1950, UNRWA has been bad for Israelis and Palestinians alike, and it is time the U.N. took responsibility for solving the problem.

Earlier this year, Kofi Annan made a move towards accountability by publicly outlining a series of proposed U.N. reforms. Some of the suggested shakeups of discredited U.N. bodies like the Human Rights Commission are steps in the right direction. But it is hard to trust a Secretary General who spent part of a trip to the Middle East placing a wreath on Yasser Arafat's grave. And even harder to overlook 50 years of U.N. antagonism against Israel.

Mr. Speaker, sometimes events happen one after another and no one calls attention to a pattern. Today, alarm bells should be going off about the rising threat of anti-Semitism. When Arab countries practiced anti-Semitism, when textbooks made Jews out to be devils, commentators here said, Well, that is just the Israeli conflict; do not worry. When some countries voted against Israel in the United Nations as a matter of routine, the pundits said it is just to win favor with oil-rich nations: Do not worry.

When synagogues are desecrated in France and Jews attacked in that country, the calm observers said: It is just peculiar to France, do not worry.

On April 22, the British Association of University Teachers representing nearly 49,000 higher education professionals decided to boycott all relationship and exchanges with Bar-Ilan and Haifa University in Israel. Now what do the ``do not worry about anti- Semitism'' crowd say? The very citadels of civilization are experiencing a rising tide of anti-Semitism. Not only Britain but the academics and intellectuals of Britain. We must call it out, confront it.

We have learned this lesson: the answer to anti-Semitism is not silence; it is not acquiescence. It is to call it by its name and fight. I call on the Bush administration to join me.

Mr. Speaker, on May 14, 2005 there was a military retirement ceremony for Major General Richard S. Colt, the Commanding General of the 77th Regional Readiness Command at Fort Totten, New York. He has served his country honorably for nearly forty years. While no statement could adequately recognize his achievements, Major General Colt's accomplishments in service of his country deserve our greatest admiration and thanks.

Major General Colt received his commission as a Second Lieutenant in the Military Intelligence Branch in 1967 through the Reserve Officer Training Corps Program at Fordham University, in New York City. After completing the Infantry Basic Course at Fort Benning, Georgia, he served on active duty with the Military Assistance Command in Vietnam from May 1968 until May 1969.

In November 1969, Major General Colt was honorably discharged from active duty, and in

June 1978 he joined the New York Army National Guard where he served until September 1985. At that time, Major General Colt transferred to the United States Army Reserve where he served as: Deputy Commander, 94th Regional Support Command; Chief of Staff, 77th Regional Support Command; Commander of the 301st Area Support Group at Fort Totten, New York; Deputy Chief of Staff for Training and Chief of Unit Training, Headquarters, 77th Army Reserve Command; and Commander of the 5th Battalion, 5th Field Artillery at Fort Tilden, New York. On June 20, 2001, he was assigned as the Commanding General of the 77th Regional Support Command, which was restructured and renamed to the 77th Regional Readiness Command in July 2003.

In addition to completing the Infantry Officer Basic Course, Major General Colt has completed the Field Artillery Officer, Military Intelligence Officer, and Quartermaster Officer Advance Courses, the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College and the Army War College. He holds a BA in English from Fordham University, an MBA in Organizational Behavior, and a PMC in Information Systems from Iona College.

General Colt has received countless military awards for his service: the Legion of Merit with Oak Leaf Cluster, Bronze Star Medal, the Meritorious Service Medal with two Oak Leaf Clusters, the Army Commendation Medal with two Oak Leaf Clusters, the Army Achievement Medal, Vietnam Service Medal with two service stars, the Republic of Vietnam Honor Medal First Class, the Vietnam Campaign Medal, the Republic of Vietnam Gallantry Cross with Palm Unit Citation Badge, a Meritorious Unit Commendation Medal, and the Combat Infantryman Badge.

Since July 25, 1967, Major General Colt has served the United States. He is a living example of honor, duty, courage, and service. I wish him well in his retirement.

Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.

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

The purpose of this amendment is simple. First of all, let me say what this amendment is not. This amendment is not an effort to litigate again the conflict that has arisen in this House between urban Members and rural Members. It is not an effort to revisit the formula question about the minimums. I think that the committee has done a fairly good job on trying to manage that situation, although it is not perfect. My belief is that there should be no minimum guarantee. Money should be allocated based on threats. That is the way I think it should be done, but I understand the efforts of the ranking member and the chairman to address that problem; and they have done so, I think, better than we have up until now.

The question still arises about whether or not we should have a portion of our homeland security funding stream that is dedicated for what we in Congress said we wanted in the 2003 omnibus, which is a pool of money that is designated to go, in the language of the legislation, to address the unique equipment, training, planning, and exercise needs of selected large high-threat urban areas.

We have now, through the course of time, expanded that not just to be cities; it is literally the areas around cities, the cities and the suburbs, and in

many cases it is also the ports authorities and the airports authorities of these major cities.

What my legislation would do would be to address a creeping problem that was not created by this Congress but has been created by the Department of Homeland Security. These high-threat urban area grants, which started out going to six cities, have expanded over time to the point that now they are over 50 cities, and there are also additional areas and airports authorities and the like that get it.

What my legislation would do would be to say, look, there are going to be times when we are going to want to take a city or an area, and they may be under less threat or we may want to add one, but we must not continue down the path for, I think, largely political reasons each year adding more and more and more cities to this pot.

Here is what it is doing. We in the Congress are expressing our views to increase the funding for that pool of money; but the Department of Homeland Security, by administrative fiat, is adding the number of cities that are available, therefore actually reducing the amount and percentage that the larger cities and areas have to contend with.

Now, for my colleagues who represent rural areas, my colleagues who represent suburban areas, my colleagues who represent areas that are not traditionally thought of as large urban areas, I want to assure you nothing in this amendment in any way limits your ability to get funds from this pot. Because under language written by the chairman and the ranking member, now areas can pool together. For example, if Kansas and Iowa and Nebraska want to get together and say we want to create a pool to protect against agro-terrorism, for example, they could be added as a group under my amendment very easily.

This simply says one thing: we have to stop adding more and more cities when that was clearly not the intention of Congress to do. We said in our actions that we wanted this to be a select number of areas. If the Department of Homeland Security is going to continue to add to that list, until we essentially have every single eligible city up to the limit that is laid out in the law, what is the purpose of having the bifurcated system? Maybe we should not.

I mean, I happen to believe that we were trying to address a legitimate concern that many have raised, including the 9/11 Commission, that said, look, there are some areas and cities that we want to have a distinct pot of money for.

Before I reserve, let me just make another point. We are talking about approximately 25 percent of the overall funding stream for homeland security. We are not talking about 75 or 80 percent. We are talking about a discrete amount of money, a discrete percentage of money which would be held for these 50 or fewer cities. Now, I happen to believe 50 is a very high number. When you start thinking about the 50 largest cities, the largest metropolitan areas, there are cities on the list presently that do not even have minor league baseball teams, yet they are considered major urban areas.

I am not saying that we should take all of the funds and just dedicate them to my hometown. I know that is not anything that we should do. We have a law here that is crafted to distribute money based on different types of threat, different types of ways. But we in the legislature here in Congress have said very clearly that we believe there should be a pot of money that is protected from the traditional political back and forth. Let us continue to protect that pot of money.

If you vote for my amendment, it does not mean any of your constituents are not eligible for this money. It does not mean that. But it does mean if you are one of these cities either now, in the past, or in the future, you are not going to be on the list of 300 or 400 cities. It is going to be limited to 50 at most.

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

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

First of all, in reaction to my good friend, the gentleman from Mississippi, he is incorrect. The bill defines the size of a region at 1.65 million, but it leaves open cities of any type. We do not know, since the bill is silent on that distinction. You can have a city of 20,000 and be eligible for this. You can have a city of 10,000 and be eligible. The gentleman from Mississippi is correct that a region has to be 1.65 million, but nowhere does it restrict the size of the city.

As for the chairman, the chairman, who has done an excellent job on this bill, regrettably is incorrect as well. There is nothing in my amendment that restricts this from going to cities

or to regions. As I read from line 4 of the bill: ``may not award any more than 50 grants for any fiscal year.'' If the Department of Homeland Security, which by the way this issue is somewhat vague in the bill as drafted, it is silent on how this program is going to be divided. If the Department of Homeland Security says grants are available to areas, which they have been in the past, fine. Limit it to 50. If they say it should be cities, limit it to 50.

If we take the chairman and the ranking member's argument to its logical extension, you could conceivably in this portion of the bill, which the language says ``shall be to exercise the needs of selected large, high-threat urban areas,'' it could be any city of any size. And I do not believe that was the intention of our legislation.

I think what we are doing, and with all due deference to the gentleman from Mississippi, I am not just offering this because I am from New York. It could be that we add the 200 cities to this, 300 cities, 400, 500 cities, and we completely undermine the intention of this Congress when we created the program to begin with. Maybe you are right. In that case, do away with the program. It is not any longer going to be a high-threat, high-density urban area grant program. Then let us eliminate it. Put it in with the other pot of money. But if we are going to have it, let us preserve its integrity.

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

Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from New York (Mrs. Maloney).

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

There seems to be some misunderstanding, and I am waiting for some clarification on our side, if the majority side has clarification, because it might lead me to withdraw my amendment.

If someone will stand up and say that a city of less than 1.65 million will be ineligible to receive these grants in the future, as has been articulated by the ranking member and implied by the chairman, then we are on to something.

The language in the bill refers to the area which is this new thing that we are trying to do, I think, for good reason. The question is, will a city of 50,000 or 60,000 who does not form a coalition with four or five or six other cities or other regions, will they still be eligible? That is the problem.

I think that what we have here is a very good bill that continues a bifurcated system. On one hand, you have every single corner of the country eligible for money based on threat, based on the Weiner language that was introduced in committee, and I am glad you accepted; on the other side, we have this thing that now only limits the area to 1.65 million. What I am trying to do is not say a city can be on or off but say, let us limit it to 50.

Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

Offered By: Mr. Weiner

Amendment No. 1: Page 4, line 8, strike ``For purposes''

and insert ``Except as provided in subparagraph (G), for

purposes''.

Page 7, line 2, strike the closing quotation marks and the

2nd period.

Page 7, after line 2, insert the following new

subparagraph:

``(G) No increase in insurance for depository institutions

that impose overdraft fees on innocent depositors.--If, in

the case of checks drawn on accounts at an originating

depository institution which are dishonored by the

originating depository institution due to the lack of

sufficient funds in such account to pay the check, a

receiving depository institution imposes fees on the

depositor, in connection with any such check, due to such

dishonorment, the standard maximum insurance amount

applicable under subparagraph (E) with respect to such

receiving depository institution shall be the amount

described in subparagraph (E)(i) without regard to the

effective date referred to in such subparagraph or any

adjustment under subparagraph (F).''.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in honor of the 100th anniversary of Lighthouse International. They are a leading organization that helps vision impaired individuals of all ages lead independent and productive lives.

Founded in 1905, Lighthouse International is a not-for-profit organization dedicated to helping prevent the disabling effects of impaired vision. Their rehabilitation program teaches the visually impaired new skills to cope with their vision loss and accomplish the goals they have set for themselves. Lighthouse International has served approximately 5,000 residents in the New York City metropolitan area.

Lighthouse International is New York State's foremost provider of comprehensive vision rehabilitation services for people of all ages. Their services include infant and toddler programs, a child development center, counseling, career services, low vision care, a music school, computer training, and instruction in independent living.

The Lighthouse collaborates with the World Health Organization (WHO) and the International Agency for the Prevention of Blindness (IAPB) to develop strategic plans that address and prevent vision impairment. They are a participant in the IAPB's ``Vision 2020: The Right to Sight'' campaign to eliminate avoidable blindness.

There are 180 million people with vision impairment worldwide. Lighthouse International deserves recognition for its tireless work on their behalf. Their programs give hope to people who had once lost their faith in accomplishing everyday activities.

Mr. Speaker, April 24th marks the 90th commemoration of the Armenian genocide. On that day, Ottoman Turkish leader Talaat Paskha uttered the frightening directive to ``Kill every Armenian man, woman, and child without concern.''

Between 1915 and 1921, more than 1.5 million Armenians were slaughtered, approximately 80 percent of the population. Men were tied together with ropes, taken to the outskirts of their town and shot or bayoneted by death squads. Women were brutally raped and hundreds of thousands were starved to death. 75 percent of those who were forced into death marches perished, especially children and the elderly. And those who survived the ordeal were herded into the desert without water, thrown off cliffs, burned alive, or drowned.

Ninety years after that first genocide of the 20th century, it is hard for many Americans to conceive of a tragedy on such a scale. An equivalent massacre on U.S. soil would claim the lives of 236 million Americans. That's every man, woman, and child in 48 of the 50 United States.

Some mistakenly believe that recent events make the Armenian tragedy seem long ago. To the contrary, its relevance has a heightened importance today. One week before Hitler invaded Poland in the fall of 1939, he ordered his generals ``to kill without pity or mercy all men, women, and children of Polish race or language. Only in such a way will we win the vital space that we need. Who still talks nowadays about the Armenians?''

That is precisely why we must still talk about the Armenians today. And we must still talk about the Jews, and the Poles, and the Russians, and the Catholics, and the Tutsis, and the moderate Hutus, and the Sudanese whose lives have been lost to genocide.

That is why this week's commemoration here in the United States Congress and those events going on this week are so crucial. If the world fails to remember the Armenian genocide of the early 20th century, we will have abandoned the collective commitment to fight the evils that communities have unleashed upon another.

In these early years of the 21st century, Armenians understand the War on Terror. It is a war they have now been fighting for ninety years. A war the world community still refuses to recognize. As we gather today to pay tribute, it is time for the U.S. Congress to finally designate what we all know to be a case of genocide. While tragically it may not be last, it is time to correct the history in the minds of many and finally declare the Armenian genocide the holocaust that it was.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today with indignation over the situation in Tibet. In 1949, Tibet was invaded and occupied by The People's Republic of China. In the course of the invasion and occupation, an estimated 87,000 Tibetans were arrested, deported to labor camps, or killed.

The situation has not much improved over the past sixty years. Tibetan freedom of choice is still not tolerated by the People's Republic of China and harsh punishments await any who diverge from Chinese mandates.

Each year thousands of innocent people are thrown in prison or killed under a corrupt and cruel system. Even peaceful opposition is met with exacting penalties. In fact, Buddhist monks and nuns are regularly shipped to detention for exercising their religion.

The people of Tibet live in constant fear they will be imprisoned, tortured, or killed for peacefully expressing their political and religious beliefs, or in the best case scenario, they will simply disappear in the dark of the night.

We must help the Dali Lama and the people of Tibet in their quest to live free from oppression. We must all work towards a peaceful resolution to this situation so not one more Tibetan is carried off by the night.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to mourn the loss of Yogi Bhajan, a leader and inspiration to more than 23 million Sikhs around the world. Born in 1929, Yogi Bhajan led his village of 7,000 people 325 miles to safety on foot when violence erupted between Pakistan and India in 1947. The 3HO organization he founded in 1969 has strengthened the spiritual and interpersonal ties of more than 300 communities in 35 countries.

The Sikh faith was founded in India in the 15th century. Today, there are more than 175,000 Sikhs living in the United States and as many as 75,000 in the New York City metropolitan area.

Like their founder Guru Nanak, Sikhs practice tolerance and equality for all humans. Unfortunately, Sikhs here in the United States find themselves the objects of just the type of discrimination and that Yogi Bhajan worked to combat. In the last 3 years, the Sikh's have been the victims of at least 62 hate crimes, 27 cases of racial profiling, and 22 incidents of employment discrimination. In a particularly public incident from my home town, a Sikh subway motorman in New York City lost his job when the Metropolitan Transit Authority (MTA) said he could not wear his religious headgear to work.

Today, in the spirit of our commemoration of Yogi Bhajan's enormous contributions, Congress should pass the Workplace Religious Freedom Act, which would require an employer to accommodate a worker's faith unless it imposes significant difficulty or expense on the employer.

The Workplace Religious Freedom Act has the support of an incredibly diverse coalition of organizations including the National Sikh Center, Agudath Israel, the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism, the National Council of Churches, the National Council of Muslim Women, and the Southern Baptist Convention.

If the Workplace Religious Freedom Act were passed, a Sikh would be able to wear a turban at work unless it posed a serious health or safety concern. And a Jew or Seventh Day Adventist could arrange not to work on Saturday, in exchange for working overtime earlier in the week.

We should take this opportunity to honor Yogi Bhajan by doing right by the community that survives him. Let's make sure the Sikh community in America lives in an America devoted to the spirit of tolerance and equality that Yogi Bhajan came to symbolize.

Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.

Mr. Chairman, reserving the right to object, just so I understand, I can under this agreement be able to reserve time. Unlike the 5-minute rule, I would be able to reserve portions of my 5 minutes?

I thank the gentleman.

I would say to the gentleman from New York, this is just on this amendment.

Amendments thereto, meaning to this.

Mr. Chairman, I withdraw my reservation of objection.

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

Mr. Chairman, this is a similar amendment that we have passed recently, as recently as July of 2004; and it restricts any money in this bill, not a single dollar, not a single dime going to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. We have had the debate many times in this Chamber; and on a few occasions some of my colleagues have posited, oh, no, this is not the right time to do it, the Saudis are getting better, they are becoming more cooperative, they are not exporting Wahabism, they are not exporting terrorism, they are not funding terrorism, they are not restricting human rights as much as they had, they are on the path to reform.

I am offering the amendment again today because in the last 7, 8 months since we have offered this amendment last to restrict moneys in the foreign aid bill, it has gotten worse and worse and worse still. Just in recent months, the State Department issued its annual country reports on human rights practices. Here is what it said about Saudi Arabia: ``There were credible reports of torture and abuse of prisoners by security forces, arbitrary arrests and incommunicado detentions. The religious police continue to intimidate, abuse and detain citizens and foreigners. Most trials were closed.''

That was not years ago. That was just in the last couple of months. The State Department also issued its report on anti-Semitism on the 30th of December. Of course, it reports about how there is an explosion of anti-Semitism in Europe and throughout the world funded by the Saudi kingdom.

Just in February of this year, Freedom House, an organization, sent Muslim volunteers to 15 prominent mosques in New York, from New York to San Diego, and collected hundreds and hundreds of books paid for by the Saudi Arabian Government that said things like, quote, any Muslim who believes that, quote, churches are houses of God and that God is worshipped therein is an infidel.

Another quote from these Saudi publications: Be disassociated from the infidels. Hate them for their religion. Leave them. Never rely on them for support. Do not admire them and always oppose them in every way according to Islamic law.

And here is what these Saudi documents say about America: It is forbidden for a Muslim to become a citizen of a country governed by infidels because it is a means of acquiescing to their infidelity and accepting their erroneous ways.

Also, these documents published by the Saudis, this is what it says about war against America, not years ago but weeks ago: ``To be true Muslims, we must prepare and be ready for jihad in Allah's army. It is the duty of every citizen and the government.''

Mr. Chairman, there should not be any money in this bill, and there is not presently any money that specifically says it can go to the Saudis; but we have seen again and again how money gets reprogrammed without a full vote of this Congress. If we vote today to say no aid to the Saudis, the President could not come back and ask for any of this money to be reprogrammed.

I think that the time has come for us to start sending an unambiguous, clear message to the Saudis that we understand, particularly in the post-9/11 world, that we are going to judge people based on what they do, not on what they say, on their record, not just on their glossy public relations campaign.

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

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

Let me just quote what the gentleman from Wisconsin said in the last debate: ``The government of Saudi Arabia has greatly increased its effort to root out terrorism. It has greatly increased its cooperation in intelligence matters and others with the United States.''

The facts that I read just now were within the last months. It is simply not true. Do not believe the hype.

Mr. Chairman, I yield the balance of my time to the gentlewoman from Nevada (Ms. Berkley).

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

I will close by saying just two things in points of clarification. One, the gentleman, despite the best efforts of this House, is incorrect. Despite our amendment saying no money can go to Saudi Arabia, moneys were allocated to Saudi Arabia; so they are now entitled to discount on purchasing for our military. So our will was not followed.

Secondly, to the previous speaker, this notion that they are not exporting Wahabism has been debunked by the State Department as recently as 1\1/2\ months ago. They are exporting terrorism, exporting Wahabism. I would say they are two-faced except they have so many members of the Royal Family, they are several hundred Fahds, and the time has come for us to start judging people on what they do, not what they say.

I have 5 additional seconds to make my punchline point. This amendment will say that we believe that Saudi Arabia should be treated not as an ally but as an enemy in the War on Terror because that is what they have been.

Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.

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

I thank the chairman of the subcommittee and the ranking member of the full committee for stalling a bit while I prepared.

This amendment is very simple. It simply says that we should not allocate at this moment in time any aid to the Palestinians.

We have a history in this Congress of lurching forward at the first sign of any optimistic sign, and I freely concede that this is such a moment in the Middle East. We, the taxpayers, are the first to put money on the barrel head: $612 million up to now, including $20 million in direct aid to Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas. If the name sounds familiar, it is because the $20 million was not offered and proposed during this administration of Mahmoud Abbas. It was the last time. That money went in direct aid, and it is now gone.

We have a tendency all too often to want to wish things to go well in the negotiations between the Palestinians and the Israelis, and the way we express that wish as taxpayers is by essentially giving money and more money and more money.

There is no doubt in my mind that we in the United States have an important role to play here in the peace that hopefully will ensue. But what we should be doing is offering money based on performance, money based on transparency, money based on democratization, money based on furtherance of U.S. interests.

We are offering this money now, and it is tied to nothing. There does not have to be compliance with the road map. There does not have to be compliance with past agreements. There does not have to be any type of democratic reform, and there does not have to be any type of transparency.

You know, I am not the first to say this. The IMF acknowledged in 2004 that $900 million, $900 million in funds that went to the Palestinian Authority were not unaccounted for.

Now, the funds we provide do not go to the Palestinian Authority except for the $20 million I referenced earlier. They go to NGOs in the region. But I will argue to you that just the same way we would not fund an NGO in Iran or North Korea until we started to see some dramatic change in behavior, we should not do it here either.

What we should do is we should pass my amendment. The committee should return to the administration and say look, we want to be participants in this peace process as well. Here is what we will do. Rather than $200 million now at the front end, we will say $25 million. At the end of the year, if you have complied with the road map towards peace that the President has laid out, we will put in another 50 or another $75 million. If after a year and a half there seems to have been 100 percent effort to cut down on violence, not the nonstop falling of Kassam rockets that is going on now, then maybe we do another $50 million or another $75 million, essentially using the money as a reward for the type of activity that the United States and our taxpayers want.

Now, no one could argue that today, despite the changes in the Middle East, ones that, frankly, have me optimistic, no one could argue that Mahmoud Abbas has shown 100 percent effort to end violence. No one could argue that the Palestinians now have transparent government. No one could argue first and foremost that they can show us where the $900 million that the IMF said had been absconded, where it has gone.

I am not saying do not provide aid. I am saying that this is the least beneficial way to do it. You give them $200 million. If tomorrow we learn that the Palestinian administration has not lived up to its commitments, then we will have lost the money.

Now, let me conclude before I reserve my time with this thought. You know, this is not the first time we have been in this pattern. We can learn a little something. At the Wye River Accord we put in money. Wye River went away. The Israelis walked away from it because the Palestinians violated it. Our money was still going.

The Oslo Accords the same way. U.S. dollars were going long after the Oslo Accords had run aground. The Tenet plan, the Mitchell plan, the road map to peace. You know, we forget that $20 million in direct aid went to the Palestinians and the same exact arguments that my good friend, the gentleman from Arizona, is going to make here today were made then. These are optimistic times. There is a new administration. We need to foster, we need to encourage it. I do not dispute that. The only question is do we put the money on the barrel head first, or do we wait till later.

And one final point. You know, the Israeli position I do not really know on this issue. And frankly I do not care. Lobbying organizations on behalf of the peace process, that is not what this is about. This is about taxpayer dollars and how they are most wisely spent.

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

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

Let me first of all say to the gentleman, the chairman of the subcommittee, there are no two stronger supporters of Israel in this Congress; but I have to tell you, I can practically write your remarks, because I heard them after Wye River, I heard them after Oslo, I heard them after the Tenet Plan, I heard them after the Mitchell Plan, and I heard them after the road map. And I will summarize them this way: there is never a good time to change our policies on funding the Palestinians.

It is always an optimistic time when we begin these negotiations. I do not deny it. And I am not saying do not engage in them. I am saying let us use the U.S. tax dollars in a smarter way. Let us say, why give them $200 million and then say, okay, go off and do the best you can. Why not say give them 10 percent now, 50 percent later on. We incentivize other activities in Congress. Why not do that one?

By the way, I know all about the USAID restrictions. I know about them, because you wrote them last time, and they were very, very tough. They said you cannot get a single dime, a single shekel, unless you agree that you will not support terrorism. You know what? They would not sign. A lot of these NGOs would not sign that document until the gentlewoman from New York went back and said, well, you better believe you are going to have to sign it, and then the negotiations began.

As to the notion that this one adds, well, now we are not just going to have restrictions, but we are going to have an audit, I have to tell you it is kind of like saying let us invest in Enron because there is a strong audit going on.

Maybe the smarter thing to do would be to say this: let us have the audit. Let us see if the new finance chairman is up to snuff. Let us see if Mahmoud Abbas really can delivery, and then give them more and more incentives to continue to comply with their agreements.

Why is that so counter to what we do around here? We demand that type of accountability everywhere else. It is not as if they have a good record. Every single time we have invested, we have looked back and said, well, that is another $100 million; oh, that is another $50 million.

Well, we were so optimistic. I am optimistic too, but it is deja vu all over again.

I am not saying do not be engaged. I am not saying do not have peace. I am not saying do not negotiate. I am not saying do not make concessions. I am not saying stay on the sideline and do not do anything. I am saying if we are going to spend United States tax dollars, let us not keep engaging in the same activity over and over again expecting to get a different result.

I yield to the gentlewoman from New York.

Reclaiming my time, first let me say, Sharon has his constituents, Abu Mazen has his and I have mine. My constituents, frankly, it is their tax dollars we are investing here. This is not Israeli policy we are talking about. They have to pursue it the best they can and hopefully it works out this time. I am not talking about the Palestinian allocation.

I am talking about the fact that I have heard this song before. I have heard we have tough restrictions. As the gentlewoman knows, we thought we wrote the perfect ones in the bill last time, requiring them to sign. We will certify not a single dollar goes to a terrorist organization. We had to fight kicking and screaming to get these organizations to sign these documents. It is our money. And all I am saying is let us stage it. Let us phase it in. Let us make it based on incentives. It did not work any other way.

By the way, I point out every negotiation that the Palestinians and Israelis have engaged in, that is the way they did it. In Oslo they did not say, here is everything. In Oslo they say, you do A, we will do B. You do C, we will do D. What do we do? We walk up to the plate. We are so eager for peace, and we all are, we are so eager to show that we are committed to it, we put the dollars out there without my incentivization on it.

I think that nothing is more symbolic. With all the talk about the audit and the USAID restrictions, nothing is more symbolic. The headlines will read tomorrow, Congress allocates $200 million to Palestinian projects.

I think what it says is, Congress allocates $25 million and says $175 million are there if things go well.

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

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

We have had this conversation about process here, but let us not ignore the realities on the ground. As much as Abu Mazen has said many of the right things, let us remember what happened in those elections in Gaza, 77 of 118 seats were won by Hamas, 77 of 118 seats were won by Hamas.

Now why is that significant? Democracy, sometimes you get what you want, sometimes you do not. But let us remember what Hamas has said. They have publicly announced they will not abide by any ceasefire negotiated by Abu Mazen. Now, Abu Mazen is the one that we have referred to here. Mahmoud Abbas is who we have referred to here as the new partner for peace.

The gentlewoman who just spoke has said the Arafat era is over. The Abu Mazen period has just begun. Let us not make our investment a foolish one.