Floor Statements

Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. I will not take the full 5 minutes. As a member of the Democratic baseball team, we have a date with destiny shortly.

I just wanted to explain the amendment, and then I will yield back my time.

This Congress in the 2003 State Department Authorization Act said that once and for all, any documents like passports and the like that refer to Jerusalem have to say the country. It is the only instance in our Nation where it says a city but it does not refer to the country, a strange form of record keeping that we clarify.

There are now some lawsuits from people who are trying to enforce that law that this Congress passed overwhelmingly, and the Justice Department and the State Department are fighting those suits. Mine would be an amendment saying that no funds can be used to stop Congress's will from being put into place. I urge a ``yes'' vote.

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

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

Offered By: Mr. Weiner

Amendment No. 33: At the end of the bill (before the short

title), insert the following:

Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of words.

I will not take the full 5 minutes. I just want to join the leaders of the communities in expressing strong opposition to this amendment. This is not an academic issue in New York City. We had a circumstance after September 11 where FBI agents fanned out into the neighborhoods doing interviews at corner stores in Arab American communities. And the FBI was required to notify the INS anytime they found anything untoward. The word spread within hours, and I think the gentleman from the Bronx would acknowledge this, spread within hours, do not cooperate, do not give the information. The FBI in the City of New York turned to the NYPD and said since they have a trustful relationship with many of these recent immigrants, can they go conduct these interviews.

And a lot of the information that was gathered, including some about threats to blow up the Brooklyn Bridge, was gathered that way. So from a law enforcement perspective, this amendment has no merit. Proof of that is I can read a list as long as my arm of police departments and police organizations who are opposed to this type of initiative. As the gentleman from New York said, they do not want their officers in the position of breaking down what is often years and years of trust because of this type of thing. It is demagogically very appealing to say the minute they find out someone has violated the immigration laws, let us turn them in. But from a realistic, real life, particularly antiterror amendment, one could not imagine a worse amendment.

Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.

Mr. Chairman, reserving the right to object, the gentleman will be offering a secondary amendment to the amendment? I did not understand.

Mr. Chairman, I withdraw my reservation of objection.

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

Mr. Chairman, I also want to offer my thanks and gratitude to the chairman and ranking member of the subcommittee who, with great grace and dignity, often have to find ways to put 10 pounds' worth of things into a 5-pound bag.

This amendment is one that simply argues that in one case, the COPS program, we are allowing the program to effectively die in this bill; and we must not have that.

First, some of the facts. The COPS program has been an enormous success. From coast to coast, big towns, small cities, police departments as few as five members and as many as the New York City Police Department of 40,000 have benefited enormously from the COPS program.

Over the course of time, the program has not only shrunk but morphed and become more efficient. Many of my colleagues, including in the city of New York, have suggested, well, we need less money for hiring, but we do need more money for things like radios and equipment and cars. So the program has morphed into a block grant. The problem is, it has also hemorrhaged to an enormous degree.

In 1997, there was $1.3 billion allocated by this Congress just for hiring. In last year's bill, we were down to $219 million. What we see here is how this reorganization happened. We have now block granted the entire program into the COPS Enhancement Grant Program, something that, by the way, I support; it gives greater flexibility to police departments. But the bottom line is, we have reduced this to $113 million.

Again, to reiterate, we have taken a program, an enormously successful program that at its high-water mark reached $1.3 billion, not decades ago but in 1997; we are now proposing to cut that to $113 million.

It is so bad, there is so much demand, there are 2,000 applications for hiring grants totaling $511 million last year. So far, they are only able to provide funding for $385 million of them. That is only 15 percent of the eligible States and localities that have been able to get grant funding, because this program has hemorrhaged so far.

Everyone agrees that it works. John Ashcroft praised the program. The University of Nebraska did a study to show the COPS program in a 5-year period resulted in a reduction of 756,000 violent crimes.

And just a word, a brief word, about the offset. We propose to take the funds, and here I want to thank my colleagues, the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Keller), the gentleman from New York (Mr. Quinn), the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Stupak), the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Ramsted), the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Andrews), the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Holden) and the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Platts), to take the money from the largest step-up that is in the bill, which is the Census Bureau.

I have no beef with the Census Bureau. They do a difficult job. They do it every 10 years, and there is a need to ramp it up, but the ramping up that is going on is coming at the cost of the COPS program. Fiscal year 2005, I believe we are going to have other opportunities to ramp up the Census Bureau.

In fact, at this point in the last census, the software for the census had not even been purchased yet. That is how early we are in the process, but I mean no disregard to that bureau. They do an excellent job. Unfortunately, I believe the COPS program deserves greater attention.

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

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

Mr. Chairman, I would just point out, we in this House authorized $1 billion for the COPS program. It is authorized this year at $113 million, and as far as the Census Bureau, I agree they do very important work. In 2000, they acknowledge they made mistakes in the undercount and refused to adjust, so I am not even convinced, if they had the money, they would do it.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Keller), the cosponsor of the amendment.

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. I just want to address a couple of the points that have come up.

First of all, the chairman as addressed many times the level to which we exceed the President's request for COPS. Yes, the President proposed zero for COPS. He proposed zeroing out the program. This is a bipartisan amendment because we think that is bad idea.

The second point that is made is it is going to cost personnel at the Census Bureau. Well, I would just remind my colleagues we do not touch the salaries and expenses line of this budget. We only refer to the part that is periodic censuses and programs, but I can tell my colleagues what eliminating the COPS program has done. It has meant that less cops are on the beat. We have fired cops in the real world because the COPS program is hemorrhaged.

Finally, if I can make reference to the final point of the distinguished ranking member about how the City of New York does not hire cops with its funding anymore. That is exactly right. That is why the program is now in a block grant formula that allows police departments to buy radios, something the city has done; paid overtime, something the city has done; and provided overtime. These are ways that the program has become more responsive in response to some of the objections that our colleagues have raised about the COPS program. In boom hiring times, it hires. Now, we allow it to backfill for overtime and other types of programs.

The City of New York, as we speak, has an application in for the Safe Schools Program, which is part of the COPS program. Well, they are going to get zero with the budget that is before us now. They will get funded with some certitude if the Weiner amendment passes.

I would make one final point to my friends who are supportive of the Census Bureau, particularly my friends, the gentlewoman from New York (Mrs. Maloney) and the gentleman from New York (Mr. Serrano). If someone comes to this floor right now and says the improved funding will lead to a census undercount adjustment in the year 2010, I will withdraw my amendment; but that is not going to happen. We provided them all kinds of funding, and let me tell my colleagues what happened.

In 2000, the Census Bureau, not courts, not Congress, decided we are not going to do an undercount adjustment. What did it cost? The county of the Bronx, $262 million because of that undercount; the county of New York, $212 million as a result of that undercount; and here we are fighting and scratching to defend their funding. Well, God bless them, but they have already showed that money is not their problem. When we give them more money, they acknowledge an undercount and they still do not fix it.

So I have got to tell to my distinguished colleagues from my hometown of New York, at least we know the COPS funding winds up getting to New York. We cannot say that about census funding.

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

Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

First, I appreciate the gentleman's expertise on this issue. Should I take it from his concerns and comments about the undercount in New York that under his leadership he will commit to doing something the Census Bureau has refused to do, which is a statistical adjustment to take into account the undercount and adjust New York accordingly? I mean, I appreciate the gentleman's protests; but to be honest with him, it was not a shortage of data. It was a shortage of a desire on the part of the Census Bureau to use that data to enfranchise those who were disenfranchised.

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. I just want to make a couple of quick points here.

Look, the problem is not that there is an undercount. The problem is they discovered the undercount and steadfastly refused to do anything about it. By the way, in the data that we are going to be accumulating over the next 10 years, we can include the number 7,300. That is the number of employed police officers in the State of Florida today as a result of the COPS program. Those are working men and women in my colleague's hometown, in the hometown of the gentleman from Virginia, in my hometown that are simply not going to be there because we are eviscerating the COPS program.

We have taken a $1.3 billion hiring program, and we propose in this budget to make it $114 million, and to say, well, the President said nothing, so we should be thrilled.

I yield to the gentleman from Florida.

Under homeland security grants, well, frankly, per capita, about one-sixth the amount of Wyoming. Any other question?

Reclaiming my time, in homeland security funding? Actually, let us talk about how much is cut.

The COPS program at one time funded 7,000 police officers in the City of New York; and by the way, I can check for a moment if the gentleman gives me his hometown how many funds in his neighborhood and that has been steadily slashed.

John Ashcroft, the Attorney General of the Nation of the United States, said that this is the best program to reduce crime. Secretary Ridge said homeland security starts in our hometown. What are we doing? Slashing the COPS program.

I can assure my colleagues, Mr. Chairman, they oppose slashing the COPS program, not knowing my colleague all that well, but knowing how it has been helpful to his community. We are doing it. We are not happy about doing it.

All I am saying is let us bring it to at least last year's level. Do not bring it to what we authorized in the House, $1 billion. I am sure the gentleman voted for it, $1 billion authorization level, $113 million half of what it was last year.

Listen, I do not have any beef with the census; and as I said, the chairman and the ranking member have a Herculean task trying to make these numbers work. All I am saying is this is one program that is a dramatic step up for something that they are trying to ramp up that I think they should, but we have to be sure we do not ramp down the COPS program into the ground in the process. The COPS program will cease to exist effectively.

As of last year, 15 percent of the States that applied got the grants. Effectively, if we cut that in half, do the math, effectively the COPS program is dead.

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

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

I have yet to hear a single opponent of the amendment say the words ``with

full funding we will have a statistical undercount adjustment.'' And the reason we cannot is that the Census Bureau is not committed to that.

It is not a matter of collecting the information, I say to my colleagues. It is a matter of what you do with it. And simply collecting the information, as we learned in 2000, is not the problem. When you have a Census Bureau that is unwilling to make adjustments, we are arguing for the wrong thing.

I can tell you this though, in the census figures, when they do employment, they are going to have less folks for cops. It is what they will have as a result of this idea of ending the COPS program.

Let us try to remember here what we are talking about. We are talking about a program that has not only hired over 125,000 cops, not only paid overtime in over 4,000 different jurisdictions, not only bought radios and repeaters, and Sprint systems for inside cars in dozens of police forces, it has resulted in the reduction of at least 150,000 violent crimes. It is an enormously successful program. Let us keep our eyes on the ball.

We all recognize here that both programs are good. It is just a matter of whether one will be ramped up very much at the expense of the other. That is all this amendment seeks to do, is to just try to restore the COPS program to a barely living, barely heartbeating pace. If we restore it with my amendment, I want to just caution my colleagues, it will still mean that only 15 percent of the applicants are going to get grants. That is all it means. Last year, they did not accept everyone's applications because we had strangled the money so sharply. They used fiscal year 2003 applications.

If we continue on this path and halve it again, I am convinced, my colleagues, when we come here in future years, the COPS program will cease to exist on almost any level that we know it. We must not allow the structural reforms that we made here to block grant the whole program being an excuse to slash it by 50 percent.

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

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume just to respond to two of the points.

First of all, it was the Census Bureau, the Secretary of Commerce, who decided not to do the undercount. You are absolutely right, some of our colleagues opposed it. It was the Census Bureau that took this to the Supreme Court, insisting they had the right, and the Supreme Court agreed with them. They did it, the administration of the agency that you are standing up for did it.

The second point I would make is that 225 Members of this House supported the reauthorization of the COPS program at $1 billion. If you think that this program is some fringe program that very few people care about, I can show you on the map how many police departments have benefited from it. This is an enormously popular program. The difference is that these are cops that go directly to our neighborhoods, directly to our districts, directly to sheriffs' offices. This even bypasses the States, this program is run so well. That is what we have reduced to virtually nothing in this, and that is what we are trying to at least bump up to last year's level. Not an overly ambitious thing, just to last year's level.

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

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. I want to thank the chairman and the ranking member of the subcommittee, both of whom I have profound respect for and the difficulty of the job they face. But I think one thing needs to be made very clear. We have had a dramatic, precipitous drop in crime in this country under Democratic Presidents, under Republican Presidents, under Democratic Congresses, under Republican Congresses.

One thing that has been consistent is that, when that happens, although criminologists wring their hands trying to think of reasons, the bottom line is very simple. We, the Federal Government, got off the sidelines and said this is not just a local problem. This is a national priority. And we started systematically helping localities fund a COPS program. And it has worked; as hiring has gone up, crime has come down.

In the midst of all of that, September 11 happened, where we once again wrapped ourselves in the dogma of support for local law enforcement. We needed to do it. This program is the embodiment of a local law enforcement program that works. And what have we done? We have, through the course of time, virtually eliminated it. It is not hyperbole. We now have a $114 million allocation from a high of $1.4 billion. That is the fact.

What I propose to do in this amendment is frankly quite modest. It is to raise it up to last year's paltry level of $230-something million. And again to reiterate, the Census Bureau, while I have my beefs with it and I know other colleagues do, this is not intended to target them. This is intended to simply prioritize a program that we are ramping up towards a 2010 census and a program that is dying a slow death today, and also a program that I think we all agree is the front line of defense in our homeland security plan.

What we need to recognize with this amendment is that we have been given a false choice that the chairman did not choose and I did not choose. It is to take a bill that is underfunded, indisputably underfunded, take programs that are underfunded, even the census line is below the President's request, and what we are trying to do is trying to make a minor change to this one program which will allow the Census Bureau to go on. We do not touch the

personnel line at all. But more importantly, we will allow the COPS program to continue functioning until we can pump some life into it.

We started that process. This Congress authorized the COPS bill that the other body has yet to act on for $1 billion, $1 billion, which is down, but it is still, in comparison to the $114 million that we see in the chairman's mark, obviously, a dramatic increase.

What does my amendment do? It does not stop us from counting people. It does not do that. What does my amendment do? It does not cause a raft of people to be laid off. It says what we are going to do is, we are going to take this ramp-up of the census department, make it a little slower, and we are going to allow the COPS program to breathe, to see another day, in a bipartisan fashion.

The COPS program is probably the most democratic, with a small ``d'' program, that we in Congress act on each year. There is no pattern of urban and rural, no pattern of north and south. Just about every locality, every city and State, every town and sheriff's department gets funds from it. They used to get hiring funds; now they get funds to either allow backfill with overtime or provide other resources to local police departments.

If my colleagues go home today and ask your police department what program do they care most about that the Federal Government provides, they will doubtlessly say, the COPS program, because they have seen it work.

There is a directory the size of a phone book of State, cities, and localities that have gotten aid from the COPS program. We are now at the point where only 15 percent of all of the eligible applicants are getting funding. If we allow this chairman's mark to pass, that number, by theory, will reduce in half, 7 percent.

What are we going to tell our police departments and our sheriffs' offices? Well, you are eligible for the grant, you got it a couple of years ago, but I am sorry, we cannot because we are funding a ramp-up in the Census Bureau. I do not believe they will be very satisfied with that.

I urge a ``yes'' vote on the Weiner/Keller/Ramstad/Quinn/Andrews/Van Hollen/Platts amendment.

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

Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word.

I have an amendment that I will not be offering, and I just say to the Chairman of the Committee of the Whole and Members, I have taken a good deal of time on the previous amendment, and I will not offer this amendment. But, frankly, it goes to another real weakness that we have to address, not only in this bill but across Congress.

Last year as we pursued the effort to step up the technology of DNA, we recognized that some fundamental things have been going on in the world for the last 10 years or so. As DNA has become an important crime-solving tool, States and localities have begun the process of databasing samples of DNA of convicted offenders. All 50 States have a program of one size or another, capturing one universe or another of convicted offenders; and we need to get all of them essentially in a giant Federal database so we can solve crimes.

But according to data which was collected, a program funded by this Congress through legislation that I wrote in the Committee on the Judiciary, we have found that hundreds of thousands, in the neighborhood of 600,000, victims of crimes at whose crime scenes evidence has been collected is sitting on the shelves waiting to be analyzed for shortage of only one thing, money.

No one thinks it is good policy. In fact, many of those victims are pressing up against the statute of limitations which means their case will not be able to be prosecuted, even if we get around to testing it.

Included in the report was an assessment that there are not enough crime labs, there are not enough facilities to store samples. There is not enough money to do tests. In the committee mark, the chairman does an excellent job of funding the President's request at $175 million. It is estimated we need three times that amount to be able to start to dig out of the backlog.

There is no doubt in anyone's mind that we have a problem. Of the law enforcement agencies surveyed nationwide for this study, 61 percent said they do not have enough space to store their evidence and had to dispose of some of it; 70 percent said the need for more space is highly critical, and State crime labs have an average of a 23.9-week backlog of analyzing data.

When a detective is investigating a sexual abuse case or rape, if they have to wait 23.9 weeks on average before the evidence is returned to them, they will tell you that justice delayed is justice that is denied.

My final point, we have had 154 cold cases solved because of additional DNA testing that the City of New York has funded on its own. We have leads of 204 more cases. What have they learned as they have done these hits, they have learned what we and criminologists already know, that rape and sexual abuse is a highly recidivistic crime. Someone that goes out and does one, chances are is going to find their way back into the system, having committed the crime again and again, finding more and more victims.

In the last exchange, we talked about how crime has plummeted. The one statistic that has not dropped, rape; rape has not. That has stayed virtually level throughout this decline in crime everywhere in the country. One of the ways we can solve six, seven, eight, or perhaps 10 or 20 crimes is by investing in DNA technology. For those who it catches, it obviously finds justice for those victims; and for those whom it frees, it allows those of us who are strong law enforcement types, like myself, to say that the system is working better.

I will not offer my amendment today because I do not want to rehash the same debate we just had; but I would ask that the chairman and the ranking member strongly consider the need for additional increases, and express my gratitude to them for fully funding the President's request.

Offered By: Mr. Weiner

Amendment No. 30: Page 26, line 20, after the dollar

amount, insert the following: ``(increased by

$100,000,000)''.

Page 28, line 4, after the dollar amount, insert the

following: ``(increased by $100,000,000)''

Page 47, line 8, after the dollar amount, insert the

following: ``(reduced by $100,000,000)''.

Offered By: Mr. Weiner

Amendment No. 31: Page 26, line 20, after the dollar

amount, insert the following: ``(increased by

$124,475,000)''.

Page 27, line 4, after the dollar amount, insert the

following: ``(increased by $124,475,000)''

Page 47, line 8, after the dollar amount, insert the

following: ``(reduced by $124,475,000)''.

Offered By: Mr. Weiner

Amendment No. 28: At the end of the bill add the following:

Offered By: Mr. Weiner

Amendment No. 21: At the end of the bill (before the short

title), add the following new title:

Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.

Mr. Chairman, I thank the chairman and his terrific staff, Deb Weatherly, and the gentleman from Washington (Mr. Dicks) and Mike Stephens and the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Peterson) for their help with this amendment. This is quite simple, and I think it is something we could find broad consensus on in this House.

On September 11, 2 years, 8 months and 6 days ago, all national parks in these affected areas of Washington and New York were closed. Today, all that time later, the Statue of Liberty, the national park that is closest to Ground Zero, the national park that arguably represents all of the things that were attacked on September 11 and represents the values of this country, remains closed today.

What this amendment says is enough is enough, reopen the Statue of Liberty by July 31, 2004. It is not closed for lack of money. This House has allocated $19.6 million for security enhancements, and that is between fiscal year 2002 and fiscal year 2004. There is an additional $10 million or so in this budget for that. The time has come for the Statue of Liberty to be reopened.

It is almost mind-boggling to me that only a matter of weeks after September 11 the Washington Monument was reopened. The Republican National Convention, which by the way we would be welcoming with open arms to New York City, will soon be coming to New York City at least in part to the proximity to that attack on our country; and yet the National Park Service refuses to open the Statue of Liberty.

Recently, they made the announcement that we are going to allow people to go into Lady Liberty and stand next to her toes, that this was some kind of a great victory for the people of the United States, despite all of the money that had been allocated for reopening. If that does not gall my colleagues, take a look at this.

This is a picture of a Web site from something called the Statue of Liberty Foundation. They have raised more than $7 million, which by the way is the amount that was originally said to be the cost for opening Lady Liberty. Folgers sponsors it. If a person sends in a Folgers can, they help contribute to reopening Lady Liberty. American Express has been giving a few dollars. Recently, the Daily News in New York City ran a campaign on their editorial page. People are giving donations of $1, $2, $3 at a time.

Millions of dollars have been raised for what purpose? To open Lady Liberty, not open her feet. Open the crown. Open the part that is most glorious. Open the part that should be symbolic of us getting back on our feet, and yet it has not happened.

It is inexplicable. The Park Service, what have they been doing? Well, we are thinking about it. We are planning to make a plan. We are anticipating maybe coming up with an idea. The National Park Service should be ashamed of their inactions. We in Congress have done our job. We have given them money after money after money for this purpose, to come up with security provisions.

We here in the House of Representatives, we had to figure out security as well. We have come up with some accommodations. People are back here and visiting. This monument is more than simply a national park. It is symbolic of this country. If the National Park Service is expecting us to believe that we are going to leave this closed ad infinitum, they have got another think coming. There is no way they can secure us in this building, they can secure us on airlines, they can secure us in the Washington Monument, they can secure us anywhere in the United States of America. Osama bin Laden is not going to keep the Statue of Liberty closed, and what this amendment says is we are not going to allow it to happen.

Republicans, Democrats, Independents alike have all contributed to help get this open. The taxpayers have contributed enormous amounts to help get this open. We have children doing cake sales all around the country to get the Statue of Liberty open; and what we are being told is, well, maybe someday we will allow people to go in and pat Lady Liberty's toes. That is about as far as we are going to get.

I believe it is outrageous. I believe it is outrageous, and we have to recognize something, that is, if we are going to raise money to reopen it, and allow people to be deceived in that way, the very least we in Congress should do is say, spend the money for what you said it was going to be for; and if by some unimaginable set of circumstances, the National Park Service, United States Armed Services, the NYPD, the United States Congress cannot figure out a way to reopen this monument, I hate to use an overworked cliche, but really, the terrorists have won. If they manage to keep this closed, it would be a shame.

I want to make one other point. I hope that when my colleagues on the Republican side of the aisle come visit New York, they have an opportunity to see the glory of traveling up to the crown of the Statue of Liberty, of seeing that glory, of participating in that. And what my colleagues will see is not only the glory of New York Harbor welcoming waves of new immigrants. They will see Ground Zero. It is a shame that when we stand at Ground Zero, the national park we see is one that is shamefully closed.

Point of Order

Mr. Chairman, I would like to be heard on the point of order.

Mr. Chairman, first of all, I want to thank the chairman of the committee and the ranking member. They have both allocated a remarkable amount of resources to solve this problem and deserve great praise.

I would argue on the point of order, Mr. Chairman, that this is not a change in existing law; that we, in existing law, have already articulated the will of this House that this monument be reopened; that this be a national park that we have allocated resources to. I would say that this is only a reiteration of existing law.

Now it might not be in this bill, but it is existing law; and I would even argue that given the allocation for security enhancements that it is the intention of this House that steps be taken; and therefore, it is not legislating in an appropriation bill, and if it is, we should do it anyway.

Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of words.

Mr. Chairman, I rise in support of the Sweeney amendment. We have essentially, as we try to figure out the way to do this, made or compounded three fundamental areas in allocating resources. First, I think there is consensus among a lot of law enforcement organizations across the country that have not allocated enough money, we need to do more.

Secondly, when we first began this process, we did it entirely based on population and we had the unusual circumstance that States like Wyoming got much more per capita than States like New York, and we in Congress and this subcommittee acted to respond to that challenge by creating a new high-threat, high-density program.

It was not Congress that then screwed that up, it was the Department of Homeland Security who took that program and expanded it and expanded it and expanded it to more and more cities. We had the unusual and almost surreal experience of having cities lobbying to be considered high density, high threat to the point now that we have some cities on that list of 50 that do not even have minor league baseball teams.

Perhaps this is not the vehicle, but I know the bill of the gentleman from California (Mr. Cox) that is moving its way through the House seeks to take that list and limit it more closely to true high-threat, high-density areas.

A third mistake that Homeland Security has made, and the gentleman from California (Mr. Cox) just referred to it, is we have this bizarre formula that takes high-threat money and allocates it first by population by a factor of nine, and then infrastructure by a factor of six, and finally threat by a factor of three. Even when we in Congress say let us allocate money based on threat, we are getting it wrong. I understand the gentleman from New York (Mr. Sweeney) wanted to address that in this bill. It was struck down on a point of order, but we need to figure out a way to fix that problem because even when we are getting money out the door theoretically addressed toward threat, Department of Homeland Security says it is not getting there because of the formulas that they are setting.

I would say, not to reiterate what others have said, is that frankly Members can make the argument that every place in the country is a potential threat. Hypothetical threat is something we can all describe. For some cities, though, it is not hypothetical. It is real. For some cities, there are actual threats.

What I would ask is there any homeland security expert, anyone who has said on the record the way we are allocating funds in this bill makes sense? I can tell Members the people who do not, people like the police commissioner of New York, people like the 9/11 Commission, people like Secretary Ridge, who himself has now said there is no doubt in his mind that the way we are allocating money is simply wrong and needs to be redirected. This is the man who came to that position after months and months on the job, and I am glad he did.

When we talk to intelligence officials and Department of Defense officials about how they do their job, they allocate resources based on real threats, they do not do it based on hypothetical threats.

I would say it is true that the Sweeney amendment does not do everything, and I would also reiterate what so many of the opponents of this amendment have said that I agree with, and that is that this should not be regional fight. This should not be factions inside of factions fighting over this fund.

I have no intention on the agriculture bill to come to this floor and demand that New York City get a piece of that pie. It simply would not be appropriate, and I do not believe it is good policy. In this case, though, when we have real threats to places like New York, I believe the funding should be allocated.

Just to give an idea what a real threat is, I just cite for the Record the story of Iyman Faris, a guy who comes to New York, sits by the Brooklyn Bridge, eats lunch at a Pakistani restaurant by City Hall, and then reports back to his handlers it is too hot.

What did he mean by it is too hot? He observed at all four stanchions of the Brooklyn Bridge an NYPD cruiser that is there all day, all night at extraordinary expense to the people of the City of New York. And they decided not to do the operation, which was a plan to blow up the Brooklyn Bridge. That is not hypothetical. It is an actual threat.

I do not think it is unreasonable that a greater portion of the money coming out of this bill goes towards places that have to deal with those threats.

Offered By: Mr. Weiner

Amendment No. 28: At the end of the bill add the following:

Offered By: Mr. Weiner

Amendment No. 21: At the end of the bill (before the short

title), add the following new title:

Offered By: Mr. Weiner

Amendment No. 16: At the end of title III (page 136, after

line 4) add the following:

Mr. Speaker, this Memorial Day we pay tribute to those who have given their lives in defense of our great Nation. The freedoms we enjoy here at home do not come cheap. They are paid for with the blood and treasure of true American heroes.

Today we reaffirm our commitment to the liberties they fought to defend. And we pledge never to forget their sacrifice.

This year, Memorial Day has a special poignancy. Here in Washington, veterans of the Second World War finally received the monument they so richly deserved. The World War Two Memorial dedicated on the National Mall provides a fitting tribute to a generation of young men and women who defended the United States against the specter of a tyranny as horrible as any the world has known. The 400,000 Americans who gave their lives in the European and Pacific theaters will never be forgotten.

In addition, this Memorial Day is special because it affords us an opportunity to honor the young men and women who are currently engaged in the War on Terror. Halfway around the world, a new generation has been called to battle. And like those that defeated our enemies in the 1940s, this new generation of Americans has faced the enemy with strength and determination. Almost 1,000 men and women have lost their lives in Iraq and Afghanistan. Those of us who enjoy the freedom they have sacrificed to defend should be immensely proud and eternally grateful.

This weekend, as we take a moment away from our normal routines, let us say a prayer and remember both those who have gone before us and those who continue to defend freedom from oppression. Our thoughts should be with those families that have lost loved ones in battle. And our thanks should go to all those who honor us by taking up arms to defend the United States.

God bless our men and women in uniform. And God Bless America.

Mr. Speaker, Edward R. Murrow High School is known for a great many things, not the least of which is producing the only two truly talented members of the Weiner family, my brothers Jason and Seth; but this year they are also known as the 2004 national chess champs, defeating over 150 schools, 300,000 student. This goes with their dynasty-building wins in 1992, 1993 and 1994, under the excellent coaching of Eliot Weiss.

We have to recognize they do belong in the pantheon of dynasties, as they defeated every school in the country and are soon going to be taking on those in this world. And as soon as NASA makes it possible, I am sure they will defeat teams from other planets.

Let me read the roll call of this great team: Salvijus Bercys, Dimitry Minevich, Olga Novikova, Alex Lidnerman, Ilya Kotlyanskiy, Oscar Santana, Willy Edgard, and Niles Smith. There is a reason they call this team the Brooklyn Kings. We offer them our congratulations.

Mr. Speaker, this month many of us pause to remember the Holocaust in Yom Hashoah commemorations. But on April 24, 1915, the first genocide of the 20th century began. The Ottoman Empire began rounding up a group of more than 250 Armenian intellectuals and civic leaders. Then soldiers of Armenian descent who were serving in the Turkish military were moved to labor camps and eventually murdered.

Across Anatolia, Armenian leaders were arrested and killed. So, too, were the most powerless, children, women, and the elderly, all driven from their homes into the Syrian desert. These mass deportations were in fact slaughters. They were death marches. Soldiers themselves not only permitted the attacks on the deportees but participated in the killing and rapes. The inevitable end was thousands upon thousands dying of starvation or simply being worked to death, but sometimes these victims were the lucky ones.

When the Turks deemed deportations impractical, the genocide took other vicious forms. In communities near the Black Sea, Armenians were forced onto boats, driven out into the middle of the ocean, and drowned.

In the end, 1.5 million Armenians were killed in the genocide as the world stood by. Henry Morganthau, the U.S. Ambassador to Turkey, who pleaded with world leaders to intervene, described the Ottoman effort to eliminate the Armenian population this way: ``The whole history of the human race contains no such horrible an episode as this.'' An American diplomat stationed in eastern Anatolia cabled back to Washington that ``it has been no secret that the plan was to destroy the Armenian race as a race, but the methods used could not have been more cold-blooded and barbarous, if not more effective, than I had first supposed.''

Like communities that survived the Nazis efforts at extermination, the Armenian community today is often faced by those who deny the Turkish effort to commit genocide ever occurred. Despite records and accounts preserved in our own National Archives, there have been those bent on erasing this horrible memory from the annals of history.

We will not let that happen. That is why today's commemoration here in the United States Congress and those going on this week is so crucial. If the world fails to remember the Armenian genocide of the early 20th century, we do more than a grave injustice to those who perished. We do a disservice to the generations who have come after us who would be left without the collective memory that binds those who understand the depth of evil that one community is capable of unleashing upon another.

Yet even as we remember and grieve, we thank those in the Armenian community for the contributions they have made around the globe since emerging from terror 89 years ago. One need not look too far to find Armenian-Americans who have become pillars of American society. Armenian-Americans are influential businessmen, like Kirk Kerkorian; famous writers, like William Saroyan; and international sports stars, like Andre Agassi.

In New York, internationally renowned scholar and Carnegie Corporation president Vartan Gregorian spent 8 years as president of the New York Public Library. Arshile Gorky was a leader of the abstract expressionist school that flourished in New York during the 1940s. And I am particularly proud that Raymond Damadian, who invented the MRI, was not only a resident of New York but was a neighbor of mine in Forest Hills. His parents were survivors of the genocide.

As we gather, we also pay tribute to those who have become famous public servants, football coaches, astronauts and others. As we gather to commemorate the Armenian genocide, we do so as a lesson to one another that we must not forget the lessons that were learned. We also gather to pay a message to those who would deny that the Holocaust ever happened. But perhaps most importantly, we gather to send a signal across the world that those who seek to deny the Armenian genocide do a disservice to all of us.

We here in the United States House of Representatives should delay no further in making our voices heard in this debate. It is worth noting that the very same people who would deny this Holocaust actively push that we do not consider the resolution that the gentleman from California (Mr. Schiff) has proposed.

We gather here today to pay tribute, but we also gather to put pressure on this United States Congress to finally designate what we all know to be the case as genocide. The first genocide of the 20th century was not the last, tragically; but it is time that we correct the history in the minds of many and finally declare the Armenian genocide the holocaust that it was.