Floor Statements

Mr. Chairman, I rise today to thank the leadership of the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee for their hard work shepherding through TEA-LU, a bill that I will support despite its flaws. The Department of Transportation studied the Nation's infrastructure and prescribed a $375 billion solution. I joined the leadership in endorsing the original version of this bill, which filled that prescription. Unfortunately, the administration is unwilling to come up with the support necessary to ensure that we are able to maintain and improve the Nation's infrastructure. As a result, we are today considering a bill that does not do nearly enough to improve the quality of life for individuals living in New York City and around the country. I look forward to working with the Committee leadership to see that this bill is improved in conference.

Mr. Chairman, as this bill moves to conference, I want to highlight four issues that are of particular import to me and my constituents. It is my hope that the conferees will include these improvements in the conference report.

First, this bill should ensure that resources are devoted by formula to states that require improvements. The minimum guarantee program shifts funding from states that have the greatest need--like New York-- to other states. Each year, New York provides $20 billion more to Washington than it gets back. New Yorkers ought not be punished for our efforts to conserve fuel, as any expansion of the minimum guarantee program would do.

Second, this bill shortchanges New York on transit funding. Despite having a third of the nation's transit ridership, New York only gets 14% of Federal funds. Transit funding should better reflect need.

Third, I hope that conferees will ensure that states starved for a consistent funding stream for ferries and waterborne transportation can count on funding from the Ferry Boat Discretionary Fund. As a co- chairman, with Mr. Nethercutt, of the Ferry and Waterborne Transportation Caucus, I am acutely aware of how much a guaranteed stream of funding would mean to improve both congestion and homeland security all across the country, and particularly in New York City, where roads are clogged on a normal day, and ferry transportation would provide not only congestion relief but another way to ensure escape from Manhattan in the case of a terrorist attack. At a minimum, New York should receive $5 million per year. I hope conferees will work with me and other Members who represent districts that would benefit from a guaranteed ferry funding stream.

Fourth, I hope that conferees will work with me to ensure that the generous funding we have provided for Senior transportation in this bill is put to its best use. I believe that establishing a center for best practices and a technical assistance center, as delineated in the other body's Surface Transportation Authorization Bill, would provide an enormous service to this nation's elderly population.

Nevertheless, Chairman Young, Mr. Oberstar, Chairman Petri, and Mr. Lipinski deserve the thanks and appreciation of every Member of this House for their tireless effort to ensure that the nation's surface transportation systems receive the resources required to keep America moving.

Mr. Chairman, I have worked hard to ensure that this bill will make significant improvements to the lives of ordinary New Yorkers. Included in this bill are a number of projects that will enhance transportation throughout New York City and in my district in particular.

At my urging, the bill includes:

$15,000,000 for the New York City Department of Transportation to build the facilities and purchase the ferry boats necessary to establish high speed ferry service between the Rockaway Peninsula and Manhattan.

$500,000 to help the New York State Department of Transportation install two permanent variable message signs that will display amber alert messages on the belt parkway.

$500,000 for the New York City Department of Transportation to study and implement improvements to the area surrounding the intersections of Avenue U and Flatbush Avenue.

$1,000,000 for each of the boroughs of New York City to make improvements to pedestrian safety, in consultation with each borough president.

$250,000 for the areas surrounding each of 10 schools in New York City. Those funds are to be spent on efforts to improve pedestrian safety surrounding those 10 schools. Students walking to IS 114, PS 200, PS 124, PS 277, Prospect Park Yeshiva, PS 81, IS 194, IS 72/PS 69, PS 153, and St. Roberts Bellarmine will all be better protected by improvements installed with funding provided in TEA-LU.

$700,000 to abate noise emanating from state roadways located within New York City that are paved with concrete. ``Diamond grinding'' measures should significantly improve the quality of life of those residing within earshot of those roadways.

$50,000 to improve the roadways surrounding the Brooklyn Children's Museum.

$1,000,000 to be used to build a new facility for the Broad Channel Volunteer Fire Department.

$4,000,000 to be used by the DOE Fund to establish a graffiti elimination program throughout the Boroughs of Queens and Brooklyn. Among the areas addressed by this program will be Kings Highway from Ocean Boulevard to McDonald Avenue.

$3,000,000 to improve transportation facilities in the vicinity of West 65th Street and Broadway in conjunction with the major capital improvements being done at Lincoln Center.

$1,000,000 for the New York City Department of Transportation to improve the streets and sidewalks of Middle Village, Queens.

$500,000 to be equally distributed at five locations in New York City for the New York City Department of Transportation to enhance the enforcement of truck routes.

$300,000 for Gateway National Park to improve the RIIS Park Boardwalk.

$1,000,000 for Gateway National Park to establish a ferry terminal at Floyd Bennett Field.

$3,000,000 to be used to improve traffic flow in the vicinity of Atlantic and Flatbush Avenues.

$1,000,000 to be used by City and State Agencies to improve homeland security at bridges and tunnels throughout New York City.

$500,000 to improve the roads and facilities at the Kew Gardens Long Island Rail Road Terminal.

$950,000 to design and construct a bicycle and pedestrian walkway along the decommissioned Putnam Rail Line in the Bronx.

$2,000,000 to improve 125th Street in Harlem in conjunction with improvements being made by Columbia University.

$1,000,000 to help Easter Seals purchase and equip cars that provide livery service to disabled New Yorkers.

And $1,000,000 to establish a bus rapid transit system at a location to be detemined in consultation with the Transportation Workers Union. Bus rapid transit uses a variety of traffic improvements, like exclusive bus lanes and coordinated signal changing, to speed bus travel on congested city routes.

At the urging of Congresswoman Velazquez, Congressman Crowley and myself, the bill includes more than $1,500,000 for pedestrian safety improvements on Queens Boulevard.

These high priority projects will make a considerable contribution to the lives of New York City residents. I could not have secured these and other programs within TEA-LU without the help and counsel of individuals here in Washington, as well as in Albany and New York City.

In particular, I would like to thank both the Democratic and Republican staff of the Transportation Committee, both of whom worked tirelessly on this piece of legislation, and who deserve the entire House's thanks. In particular, I would like to thank Ken House, Clyde Woodle, Eric Vanschyndle, Ward McCarragher, Kathleen Zern, David Heymsfeld, Dara Schleiker, and Sheila Lockwood of Mr. Oberstar's staff. Additionally, I would like to thank Jim Tymon of Mr. Young's staff who for his willingness to work with me on the issue of Ferry Transportation.

I would also like to thank Tom Kearney, Tom Herritt and their colleagues at the Albany Office of the Federal Highway Administration, Nancy Ross, Fred Neveu, Ron Epstein and their colleagues at the New York State Department of Transportation, and Andra Horsch and David Woloch and their colleagues at the New York City Department of Transportation.

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

Madam Speaker, first I would like to extend my thanks and gratitude to the chairman, the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Sensenbrenner), for making this part of the hallmark of the

Committee on the Judiciary that we are going to start to continue to have reauthorization bills on the floor for DOJ. I think that is an important thing. For too long it has gone without.

This is a large, important bill and an important part of our government. Now the next step is to have it under regular orders, to have the bill open for amendments, to have the people have the opportunity to offer suggestions. They are a diverse element of this bill. I think it would serve this body well to have an active debate about some of the elements therein and be able to go through the regular process of amendments to perfect the bill even further.

This bill has some very excellent provisions, not the least of which, as the chairman mentioned, is the reauthorization for the first time in a while of the COPS program. The COPS program is by just about every measure a success. It is one of those programs that is extraordinarily democratic, with a small D. Small towns, big cities have all benefited from the police hirings that have gone on.

This is something that transcends politics. It transcends regions. While we can have a debate, and we often do, where criminologists suggest why crime might be going down nationwide, we have academics that have taken a look at it, at the end of the day I believe it is because we in the Federal Government got off the sidelines with the COPS program and started to provide funding for States and localities to provide law enforcement officials.

Now we have a situation where there are over 110,000 cops presently funded to walk the beat all over the country with funding provided by this Congress. This bill would reauthorize it and improve it.

It is not an accident that this has broad bipartisan support. A coalition of Members just recently wrote to the Appropriations Committee urging that the COPS components be fully funded. It includes the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Stupak), the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Ramstad), the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Andrews), the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Platts), the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Holden), the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Keller), the gentleman from New York (Mr. Quinn), and myself.

It should be pointed out, though, that the President for the second year in a row included zero dollars and zero cents in his budget for the hiring components of the COPS program.

We have heard over and over again the Attorney General and the Deputy of Homeland Security Secretary say homeland security starts in our home towns. We go periodically to higher levels of alert where we tell our local law enforcement officials, our local first responders, you have got to absorb more responsibility. Yet, at the same time, we in the Federal Government have been reluctant to provide that funding. This authorization bill changes that with a program that would provide over the course of the bill $3 billion worth of funding.

Another provision that is included in this bill that is long overdue is getting our Department of Justice off the sidelines in another issue, and that is, that increasingly, by dint of terrorism overseas, U.S. citizens are dying. And simply put, the enforcement, the indictment, the investigation of those crimes is not happening.

We have seen 36 Americans murdered by Palestinian terrorists alone since the Oslo Accords have been signed; yet there have been zero indictments. There have been no real rewards. Suspects' names and faces have not been listed by the Justice Department. The Koby Mandell Act, which was authored by the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Andrews) and included in this bill, changes that; but there are things that are not included in this bill that if it would have been open rule, we would have had an opportunity to include

In 2000, we in this Congress recognized that we had a real problem after a GAO study showed that increasingly very realistic-looking badges were falling into the hands of those that should not have them. This is before September 11. A person can today go on to the Internet and search for collectible badges, and they can find realistic ones that are so realistic that they can pass for NYPD badges, Customs Department, FBI and all kinds of others. The reason is, although it is illegal to possess a badge like that, there are some very big loopholes that you can drive a truck through.

For example, if you are a collector and you certify that you are, you can purchase one of these badges. If you are someone that is using it for a movie or an entertainment purpose, you can get one of these badges. There is even an exemption in the law, a loophole in the law, if you want to use the badge for recreational purposes. Now I do not know how sophisticated a game of cops and robbers someone is interested in playing, but this is a very serious issue in the context of so many check points that we have now, so many security lines that people have to cross. These badges have caused a problem.

Over 1,200 times in New York City alone, someone has used a fake badge for illicit purposes. This is a very easy loophole to close. I would have liked the provision to have been included in the bill. It would have been a nice thing to offer, and I believe it would have had the support of this House.

If you are a collector, you can still get a badge. It has to be encased in Lucite, very simple. If you are someone who is in a movie or a film production, you have to go to the law enforcement authority wherever you are shooting and get them to sign off that you are using this badge for that purpose, and there absolutely should not be an exemption for ``recreational purposes.'' These badges are being used in some cases by true collectors; but in many cases, they are being used for illegal and illicit purposes.

Madam Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Visclosky).

Madam Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. Jackson-Lee).

Madam Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Andrews).

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

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

I wanted to conclude the way I began, by offering my thanks to Chairman Sensenbrenner. He has made this Committee on the Judiciary one that functions in a no-nonsense fashion. We legislate. We very often disagree on issues, but they are all heard. And I think he has also done an excellent job in protecting the prerogatives of the committee, making sure that important things like the funding of the Judiciary, of the Justice Department, is not left entirely to the appropriators and that we have an opportunity to craft a bill.

I would now encourage our colleagues in the other body to get going. They have many of these provisions they are also looking at. I understand they are going to take up this bill. I would urge them to do so quickly. And I think that we should, as the chairman said, get in the habit of treating this agency like others. There are sticky issues, but I think we have shown in the Committee on the Judiciary that we can navigate them.

I do want to make reference to one point, because many of my colleagues have mentioned it in passing. There is a great deal of controversy, I think much of it overblown, about the PATRIOT Act. I think supporters of the PATRIOT Act have wildly overstated its impact, and detractors have wildly overstated the impositions put on Americans. But I think the chairman deserves credit for fully funding the Inspector General's Office, with particular attention being paid to making sure that PATRIOT Act investigations are being done in an aboveboard way that does not violate the rights of Americans and that as we review the PATRIOT Act as it prepares to sunset that we have a full arsenal of information at our disposal.

I wanted to also offer my thanks to some members of the staff here at the on the Democratic side of the Committee on the Judiciary, Sampak Garg, Perry Apelbaum, Ted Kalo, Bobby Vassar, Greg Barnes, and Marc Dunkelman of my staff. In particular, I would like to offer my gratitude to Lamar Robertson, who has been my counsel on the Committee on the Judiciary for years now and has done so with remarkable aplomb, remarkable intellect, with a great sense of humor. He will be missed by those of us with whom he serves in the House, and this part in particular that deals with the COPS program is a testament to his hard work.

With that, I offer my thanks to the chairman, and I urge a ``yes'' vote.

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

Mr. Speaker, I want to express my gratitude to the Committee on Rules for making my amendment in order and to the sponsors of the Financial Services Regulatory Relief Act, which seems to be an excellent piece of legislation, although somewhat complex for those of us who are not familiar with banking law.

My amendment is both very simple, very easy for average consumers and businesses to understand. In fact, I believe when many of my colleagues are confronted with my amendment, they are going to be shocked that what I proposed to ban is even permitted in the first place.

We all know that when someone writes a check to someone, let us say they are buying an air conditioner at a local appliance store, they write a check. If they do not have sufficient funds to cover that, very often in addition to having to make up the funds for the bounced check, they get a fee from the bank. I think many of us can quibble about whether that fee is too high or not, whether it is fair. However, that is reasonable. They have violated the essential rules of the transaction by not having enough money in the account.

What many Americans do not realize is that small business who is selling them that air conditioner, also when they have the check bounce, they are

out the money. They have lost their air conditioner because they have already turned it over to the customer. But little known to many Americans is they also pay a fee. Banks charge the victim of a bounced check fees in the magnitude of $10 to $25 and in some cases $30. Seventy-five percent of all banks in the country charge this fee to the victim. We may hear arguments that, well, it costs us some money for the transaction. I do not dispute that. In fact, the person who is bouncing the check is paying a fine. What is unique about this practice that my amendment seeks to ban is it takes a customer who has done nothing wrong, they have followed every single rule of their bank, every single rule of trust, every single rule of good faith, and there is no way they can avoid this fine. And who is getting it? Average consumers get it from time to time when someone purchases something from someone and they accept a check, but more often than not it is small businesses who are victimized. That is why so many small business groups are in favor of this amendment. The Consumer Federation of America representing consumers is supportive of this amendment.

I, frankly, would defy anyone to tell me why the person who received the check should be penalized or sanctioned. Do not argue to me that they need to be disincentivized or discouraged from accepting a check. Believe me, no one intentionally takes a bad check. They are already harmed in many ways. Do not tell me that there is money that it costs to process the transaction. That could very well be the case. The only point I am making is why should the person who has already been harmed once be harmed again?

And perhaps the worst possible reason is the one that underlies all of the opposition to this amendment to the extent that there is any. Banking institutions said, Hey, Congressman Weiner, we make a lot of money on this. That is not a good enough reason. Frankly, the rules of the banking system, like any rule, like any law, should provide people fundamental rules of the road, should provide disincentives to do something bad, should punish someone who does something bad; and at the end of day in the final analysis if they are a good citizen, a good consumer, they should be able to avoid the sanction.

In the case of this fee, there is no way that any of those four things apply. They cannot avoid the fee. They cannot do anything. They can ask, I want to see ID, I want to see their driver's license. You cannot even call up the bank and say, hey, does Mr. Smith have enough money in his account, because privacy laws now prohibit releasing that type of information. Simply put, there is no rational reason why the victim, the small business that is the victim, should have to pay this fee, and there is no reason why the consumer who is the victim of a bounced check should have to pay this fee.

I will be offering an amendment that, as I said, I am grateful to the Committee on Rules for making in order which will say they simply cannot charge this fee. This is one that is not fair. I do not care if they disclose it in bold print, it is simply not fair, and anyone who believes it is have them come to this floor and say during this debate that we believe it is fair. It has no more connection to the person who received that check than it is to someone walking by the bank that day, charging them the fee. There is no connection with what they did either, other than being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

If the banking community believes that they need additional money to pay for these transactions, there are plenty of ways that they can deal with this. They can charge more at the front end. They can have interbank relationships that say, You have a customer that wrote a bad check and we want a few dollars from you to help cover it, or they can spread out the cost throughout if it is that substantial, which I frankly do not believe it is. Some estimates say it is as low as 62 cents, even when the banks themselves say that they have a case where someone can test and I want a copy and I want to debate it; even that only costs them $4 or $5 or $6. The simple fact is this is a way that victims are victimized again, and I urge support of the Weiner amendment.

Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.

The Chairman pro tempore. The Clerk will designate the amendment.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Frank).

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

Mr. Chairman, this is a very easy-to-understand issue, but a very difficult-to-understand fee. When someone writes someone a check and they do not have the funds in that account, they pay a penalty. They pay a fine. They violated the rules of the transaction. When they receive the check, what have they done wrong? What rule have they violated? What sanctions should be against someone for receiving the bad check? And the gentleman from Massachusetts was absolutely correct. This is a proconsumer measure. But let us remember who the recipients of most bounced checks are. They are small businesses, they are supermarkets, they are liquor stores, they are appliance stores that are not only out the money, they are out the goods. It simply makes no sense.

I have seen some of the arguments against this. They say, well, it is going to increase the cost of banking for consumers. If there is a cost to this transaction, I ask only one question: Why does the victim pay it? All my amendment does is it says they cannot charge the victim of a bad check for that action.

Why should the victim pay? Why should the victim pay?

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

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

I do not know where to start. First, let us start about the mistake that the gentleman made about the bill, line 13, page 1: may not impose a fee on the depositor. Nothing in this bill stops the bank from charging a fee to the person who bounced the check. Let me say it again. Nothing in this bill stops the person who bounced the check from getting a fee. You can charge them $10,000. I think it is too high, but $10,000.

Here is the scenario I would like to explain to the gentleman. The gentleman from Alabama (Mr. Bachus) knows me. The gentleman and I serve on a committee together. I give the gentleman a check. I have violated the rules. I give the gentleman a check that does not have enough money to back it. Can the gentleman check whether I have enough money in the account? Under the rules of privacy we passed here, he can. He does everything exactly according to Hoyle.

The gentleman is now the victim of a bad check. The gentleman is the victim of a bad check, I say to the gentleman. I leave town. I do not get reelected. I get elected mayor. Stranger things have happened. And the gentleman from Alabama is now out the money for the check, and his bank is charging him a fee.

I want to make sure the gentleman understands this, because he misstated it consistently over 5 minutes. There is nothing stopping the bank from penalizing the person who bounces the check. This is about the person receiving the bad check. And this notion about the landlord and the oppression that we are putting on people, do my

colleagues know who benefits from this bill the most? Those that are represented by the food marketing institute, local supermarkets, local liquor stores, local bodegas, people who receive checks in large numbers, who do everything according to the rules the gentleman from Alabama just described; and they are facing a sanction for the benefit of having a bounced check. The gentleman says, well, we are sticking this to the banks. No. There is no reason that we should stick this to anyone, but especially not the victim.

To oppose this amendment is to say, I believe the person who had the check bounced against them should pay this fee. I would say, Mr. Chairman, there are a lot of reasons why I can see the banks are so jealously guarding this. They all have dollar signs after them. They make a lot of money from this practice. But, frankly, it is patently unfair, unfair to individual consumers, unfair to that landlord. In the gentleman's description, the landlord is out the rent, and he is out the fee. What did that guy do wrong? What is the purpose of a penalty if it is not penalizing anything that he can avoid? He followed every single rule.

And I would ask the gentleman again, you are running a supermarket, you get a check. You say, I want to see your ID; I want to see your driver's license. I want a photograph. I want to know where you live. I want to know the names of your sisters and brothers. And they take the check, following every rule the bank set up, and it bounces. What have you done wrong? How do you avoid that sanction? What kind of a law do we ever pass here where we tell how you avoid the penalty? It is patently unfair.

I want to reiterate this. This is a consumer issue, because consumers get bad checks. Ninety-nine percent of these checks are to businesses, small businesses who use this check as an article of faith, and we should not penalize them for doing that.

Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. Speaker, there are clearly some messages to take from recent events and the bill that is on the floor today. The overriding message is that there is a responsibility that comes with being entrusted to broadcast over the public airwaves.

People say if viewers do not like the content of a certain show and find it offensive, just do not watch. The problem with that argument is when content is being broadcast over public airwaves, it sometimes cannot be avoided. The fact is that people in this country surf and flip up and down channels on

TV and radio. If we do not regulate what people can see and hear in these forums, children in particular will be exposed to material that is completely inappropriate.

While we, and broadcasters in particular, should take action to crack down on indecent material, we must not allow this focus on indecency to become a mission instead to do everything possible to gain favor with the FCC and their ultimate leader, President Bush. Being contrary to the government and offensive to the President and his campaign donors should not fall into the category of indecent material.

Unfortunately, the Clear Channel case with Howard Stern leaves that impression. Consider the facts: on February 25, Clear Channel announced that its radio stations would no longer carry the ``Howard Stern Show,'' citing ``indecent content'' in Stern's February 24 radio broadcast. But nothing in Mr. Stern's recent shows has been cited for indecency, and it has been years since he has been fined by the FCC. Some commentators have said his show has been milder in recent months. According to the Wall Street Journal, Mr. Stern's sponsors have not pulled their advertisements, meaning that the sponsors do not believe the show is across the line.

The only thing that has changed is that just 2 days before his suspension, Mr. Stern had become more critical of the Bush administration, an administration Clear Channel and its top executives have bank-rolled to the tune of $42,000 this election campaign cycle, and hundreds of thousands of dollars in years past.

Even more curious is the location where Mr. Stern's show is being dropped. Is it simple coincidence that political battlegrounds of Ohio and Florida are losing a popular critic of the Bush administration just as the election season begins?

While we are right to take action today to keep indecent material off the public airwaves, this should not be seen as open season on a diversity of views. If we only have radio personalities who are sympathetic to the President and his large corporate backers, then we will only have a small number of voices being heard, and all of them will be at the far right end of the radio dial.

Mr. Speaker, I will be brief, perhaps even less than the 3 minutes.

Of the forest of things that is wrong with the bankruptcy bill, and I voted against it, this is actually a provision that represents a tree that actually makes some sense.

So my colleagues understand this provision, it says that when an entity enters into bankruptcy no investment house that has been involved in underwriting on any level at any time in the history of that company could be involved in the reorganization. So the following not-so-hypothetical could happen: Ford Motor Company goes into

a bankruptcy proceeding and Goldman Sachs, who happened to be involved in their IPO 50 years ago and has had no investment and no underwriting since, is precluded from doing it. So who winds up benefiting from this provision? One company that is not an American company that happens not to do any underwriting.

We have been all year on this side of the aisle, more than all year, for the last several years, fighting against efforts by the Republicans to take away discretion from judges. This is a provision that says we are going to let the bankruptcy judge decide whether a party is disinterested, conflicted or not. If we are truly concerned about having conflicts of interest, theoretically we should not let accountants do business with the debtor company or a lawyer that has done business with the debtor company or anyone that has given advice to the debtor company. Yet we are singling out investment banks. Why? It does not make any sense to do that.

What we should do is take the language in this bill and make it the model for other debates on tort reform and everything else in this House. We have judges; we trust them to judge. We trust them to go through the parties, decide who is interested, who is disinterested, who has conflicts and who does not and then to draw conclusions about who is interested in doing what.

By striking 414 and putting this blanket provision that says anyone who has ever done any underwriting work cannot be involved in the proceedings, I would argue does not benefit the debtor or the stockholders or anyone else. We should want judges that say we want the very best, most talented people who are going to look out for the people who are the parties in the case. That should be how we do it. If we think the judges are doing a bad job, well, that is another question. If we think they cannot be trusted, well, that is another question. But we had a problem in this House recently. We say that juries cannot be trusted when it comes to tort reform. We say that judges cannot be trusted when it comes to this type of thing. When did we become such experts?

Apparently, the only thing American people can be trusted to do is vote for us, and then we take away all the discretion for everyone else. I think it is a very bad idea. There are 1,001 reasons why this bankruptcy bill should go into the dust bin. This is one provision that should not be changed. I urge a ``no'' vote.

Mr. Speaker, on behalf of the House of Representatives, it is my pleasure to welcome Rabbi Korenblit and thank him for delivering this morning's prayer.

Rabbi Korenblit's eloquence this morning was no surprise to those of us in Brooklyn who have come to know him as one of the community's most prominent moral leaders. Since 1997, he has been the Rabbi at Temple Sholom in Southern Brooklyn, after having served congregations in New Jersey and Manhattan.

Rabbi Korenblit was ordained at Meor Hatorah Rabbinical College and received advanced rabbinical training at Torah Vodaath Rabbinical Institute, Boston Kolel and Gur Aryeh Institute for Advanced Rabbinical Studies.

What has most distinguished the Rabbi's career is his commitment to children, which is matched only by his commitment to his faith. He is not only the Rabbi at Temple Sholom, but he is the principal of the Schwartz Religious School at the Temple. And he spent many years as not only a principal but as a school teacher, camp director and youth group director. He has also written and lectured extensively on educational issues, with a focus on child rearing matters. Untold numbers of young people in our community have grown up to lead healthy spiritual lives because of the influence of Rabbi Korenblit, and I can think of no greater contribution one can make to his community.

I am not only pleased to congratulate Rabbi Korenblit on the honor of being chosen to deliver this morning's prayer, but I wanted to congratulate his shul, Temple Sholom, on their 50th anniversary. For more than a generation, Temple Sholom has served the religious and social needs of the Mill Basin and Bergen Beach communities, and I wish them many more decades of continued vitality.

In closing, it is also my pleasure to welcome this day the Rabbi's wife, Daniela Reik, who is with us today, his three daughters, Haviva, Eliora, Emuna, and his mother-in-law, Mignon.

Thank you very much, Rabbi.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Massachusetts for

his great leadership and the chairman of the committee.

Mr. Speaker, the way we treat the victims of rape in this country is a crime. Evidence that is collected at crime scenes often sits for years, sometimes beyond the statute of limitations, completely untouched by human hands. When that victim goes into a hospital emergency room, frequently they sit in triage with dozens of other people for hours at a time waiting to be examined by someone with no experience in such cases. With this legislation, we change both of those things.

More than 350,000 rape kits, evidence, sits on warehouse shelves throughout the country. We had as many as 16,000 in New York City, until the city began its own program of trying to analyze that evidence.

The technology exists, quite frankly, to match victims' DNA collected at crime scenes with those of criminals. We can make hits and we can often put people away; 154 cold cases have resulted in cases being solved, and in 204 more cases, we know who did it. And now it is just a matter of finding that perpetrator of a crime.

Can you imagine being a person who has been victimized in that way, having that crime scene created, having the evidence taken in the most invasive of ways, only to learn that it is sitting and sitting and sitting without any effort to analyze it.

Why do we have this problem? One word, money. Now the Federal Government, for the second time in this House we are passing legislation to deal with that backlog, $75 million over the next 5 years.

For those of us who have become concerned that in the past money has been grabbed by the States, never makes it to the city, this allows cities to make direct applications. This is an opportunity for us to bring justice to thousands of women. This is an opportunity for us to allow women who have been victimized by rape not to be victimized a second time by a system that does not pay enough attention to it.

I would point out to my colleagues that one of the indexed crimes is going up while all the others is going down, and that is crimes against women, rape. That is because people who perpetrate rape, we know, do it again and again and again and again. One crime we solve may stop seven women from being victimized in the future. That is why these provisions are so important.

We all see DNA evidence through the lens of our own interests. I see it as both what my friend, the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Delahunt), says and through my lens as someone who cares about civil liberties, but also wants these crimes solved.

Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.

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

I am offering an amendment that I doubt will provide much controversy for this House. It is something that mirrors language that was inserted in the Foreign Operations Appropriations bill this year. It essentially says that no funds allocated in this bill should go to the countries Libya, North Korea, Iran, Syria, and Saudi Arabia. The only change from section 507 of past bills that we have done is that we add Saudi Arabia to that list. It should be no mystery to anyone in this House why we would be taking this action.

First of all, let me make it very clear that there is no direct funding allocated to Saudi Arabia, just many, many pots of money that could conceivably fund that kingdom. I could go through the list; it is quite substantial. We have a Saudi Arabian Government that supports terrorism, supports it overseas, funds homicide bombers in Israel. We have a Saudi Government that exports the type of hatred that leads to terror with Wahabbism throughout the world. We have a Saudi Arabian Government that was directly connected to September 11. Simply put, there is no reason there should be a single dime of U.S. taxpayer dollars going to that kingdom.

Putting it on a purely economic level, one that I think will appeal to just about everyone in this House, why would we offer even a hint of a suggestion that we would provide funding to the richest nation on Earth at the time when we are struggling to pay our bills as well?

The legislation is excruciatingly simple. It simply says no funds, no authority can go to these rogue nations and adds Saudi Arabia to that list, where they rightfully deserve to be.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Crowley).

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

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

Let me just address some of the brief comments that have been made so far. First of all, if I had a dime or a dinar for every time I have heard that the Saudis were thinking about changing, I would be a very wealthy man.

The fact of the matter is, the Saudis talk a very good game. Whenever there is a flash point of terrorism that comes back to them, they say, oh, we have changed. They have become professionals at dividing up the royal family and having a handful go talk about peace while a handful talk about terror. Let me just say they are not just talking and this is not just a thing of the past. As recently as 6 months ago, it was revealed that the Saudi royal family was paying bounties to terrorists, bounties to terrorists.

I would also point out to my distinguished friend from California who said that the timing is not right, well, to be honest with my colleagues, that is exactly the same argument that was made on this floor during the Foreign Operations Appropriations bill. The timing is now.

I would point out that we cast the vote on that amendment which was narrowly defeated early in the morning of the day that the report came out on

who was behind the terrorist attack on September 11. And while the 28 pages were not released, and I have not seen them, let me say this: the Saudi Arabians had a role in the attack on our country on September 11. Every arrow points that way. Frankly, now that we have that information, we should act upon it.

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

Mr. Chairman, I yield 30 seconds to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Israel).

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

Mr. Chairman, let me just conclude by saying this: This is an opportunity for all of us in this Chamber to express in the strongest possible terms, and, frankly, it is not that strong, it may wind up costing a net zero dollars to the Saudis, but in strong terms we can show how fundamentally upset we are at the way that Saudi Arabia has acted with two faces. One is the side that they show us in the TV commercials and the meetings and the negotiations and in the well- orchestrated press conferences. On the other side are the facts.

We all too often in this part of the world judge people based on what they say rather than what they do. And the Saudis should see what we do in this House. No more aid to the Saudi Arabians.

Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

Offered By: Mr. Weiner

Amendment No. 61: Page 51, after line 11, insert the

following:

prohibition against direct funding for saudi arabia

Sec. 3007. None of the funds appropriated or otherwise made

available pursuant to this Act shall be obligated or expended

to finance directly any assistance or reparations (including

direct loans, credits, insurance and guarantees of the

Export-Import Bank or its agents) to Saudi Arabia.

Offered By: Mr. Weiner

Amendment No. 62: Page 51, after line 11, insert the

following:

prohibition against direct funding for saudi arabia

Sec. 3007. None of the funds appropriated or otherwise made

available pursuant to this Act shall be obligated or expended

to finance directly any assistance or reparations to Saudi

Arabia: Provided, That for purposes of this section, the

prohibition on obligations or expenditures shall include

direct loans, credits, insurance and guarantees of the

Export-Import Bank or its agents.

Offered By: Mr. Weiner

Amendment No. 56: Page 51, after line 11, insert the

following:

prohibition against direct funding for certain countries

Sec. 3007. None of the funds appropriated or otherwise made

available pursuant to this Act shall be obligated or expended

to finance directly any assistance or reparations to Cuba,

Libya, North Korea, Iran, Saudi Arabia, or Syria: Provided,

That for purposes of this section, the prohibition on

obligations or expenditures shall include direct loans,

credits, insurance and guarantees of the Export-Import Bank

or its agents.

Offered By: Mr. Weiner

Amendment No. 60: Page 51, after line 11, insert the

following:

prohibition against direct funding for certain countries

Sec. 3007. None of the funds appropriated or otherwise made

available pursuant to this Act shall be obligated or expended

to finance directly any assistance or reparations (including

direct loans, credits, insurance and guarantees of the

Export-Import Bank or its agents) to Cuba, Libya, North

Korea, Iran, Saudi Arabia, or Syria.

Mr. Speaker, back home in New York, Mets fans are coping with the retirement of New York Mets announcer Bob Murphy. Murph was an original Met, having called Mets games since their inception in 1962, 42 seasons ago. He saw, and brought home to us, every peak and trough in between.

It's hard to explain the special bond that Mets fans have with Bob Murphy. But it is akin to a long-term friendship that begins in early childhood, suffers with you through adolescence, struggles with you through young adulthood, and triumphs with you through maturity. Friends who spend every summer day and night together, and whose hearts ache to be reunited during the long, cold winter.

As children, Bob Murphy tucked us in to bed at night. He sat with us in the classroom as we smuggled a radio into school. He rode with us as we sat in traffic. No matter what else was transpiring in our life, we could always turn to Bob Murphy bringing us a routine game in the middle of June, and be put totally at ease. Bob Murphy had that calming effect on us. Chicken pox, report cards, girlfriends all came and went--but through the years, Bob Murphy never left our side. He shared those moments with us all while bringing us to the edge of our seat, sharing with us the emotional roller coaster that comes with being a Mets fan.

He brought us laughter; he brought us tears (in the early years, often at the same time). In their history, the Mets have won two World Series and four pennants. But, nestled between those accomplishments, they have suffered at some of the leanest years that baseball has ever seen. All the while, our emotions

likewise ran the gamut; and there was Bob Murphy to share them with us.

His work behind the mike was as good as they come. One of my favorite calls remains the wild pitch thrown by Bob Stanley in the sixth game of the 1986 World Series. Everyone remembers the Bill Buckner error from that game. But, in truth, the biggest moment of that inning came a few pitches earlier, when Stanley's pitch to the backstop allowed Kevin Mitchell, the tying run, to score. Murph's succinct call was perfect. The excitement in his voice was unmistakable, and he let his brevity and his repetition indicate the profoundness of the moment.

``Gets away! Gets away! Here comes Mitchell! Here comes Mitchell! Tie game! Tie game . . .!'' And with that last ``tie game'' his voice trailed off--or maybe it was drowned out--to the loudest eruption that Shea Stadium has ever heard.

We're going to miss him. Bob Murphy gave a lot to us, more than we can ever thank him for. But today, on behalf of my colleges in the House of Representatives, I wish Bob Murphy the happiest of recaps to a tremendous career.

Mr. Speaker, I would like to bring the attention of this body to an event

that took place last week. On September 12, 2003, some of the finest citizens from around the world assembled in Philadelphia, the birthplace of our democracy, to recognize the first ``Interdependence Day''.

This historic event brought together public, civic and corporate leaders, distinguished academics and diplomats, and interested citizens and students, to reflect together on the fact that the world is becoming more and more connected. In a global climate that is too often rife with conflict, the participants of Interdependence Day examined ways to best diffuse the tensions that exist between nations and cultures. Indeed, the choice of September 12th for Interdependence Day was made in the hope that the symbolism of ``the day after'' would encourage citizens from around the world to see that terrorism and war are also opportunities for civic renewal and global cooperation.

Those in attendance had the opportunity to sign the Declaration of Interdependence--a document affirming the interdependent character of the post-modern world--to ponder questions of the relationship of independence to interdependence, and to celebrate the creation of an important 21st century commemorative event.

Interdependence Day events took place this year not just in Philadelphia, but in Budapest and in a number of schools and colleges in the United States. By the year 2004, the sponsors at the Democracy Collaborative expect to have many more venues. Mr. Speaker, I commend those who came together to celebrate Interdependence Day in Philadelphia, and those around the country and the world who are working to see that that horrors of September 11 are never repeated.