Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, the devastation wrought by Hurricane Katrina has torn down the curtain and exposed the dirty secret that divides our Nation like an open wound, and the entire world is watching. If anyone ever doubted that there were two Americas, Hurricane Katrina and our government's shameful response have made the division very clear for all to see.

New Orleans is a city where 67 to 70 percent of its population was black. Nearly 30 percent, one in three, were living below the poverty line. Twenty-one percent of the households earned less than $10,000 a year. Eighty-four percent of the people living in poverty in New Orleans were black.

So when a disaster came such as this one, the people who had cash in the bank and a car in the garage, they escaped, and those who did not were shamefully left to fend for themselves, and the majority were poor and black.

The Bush administration's response to Katrina has been nothing short of shameful, and they must account for their actions. Why did Federal officials ignore predictions of a disastrous flood and hurricane in New Orleans? Why did FEMA turn away assistance, telling Amtrak it did not need to help evacuating survivors, denying the Red Cross access to New Orleans, turning away three trailer trucks from Wal-Mart that were loaded with water, and preventing the Coast Guard from delivering 1,000 gallons of diesel fuel?

How many people died as a result of this delayed response? And why has the FEMA budget been cut since 2003? Why have the last two directors of FEMA been political appointees who had no experience with disaster management?

As one commentator recently said, he said, ``Actions have consequences. No one could predict that a hurricane the size of Katrina would hit this year, but the slow Federal response when it did happen was no accident. It was the result of 4 years of deliberate Republican policy and budget choices that favor ideology and partisan loyalty at the expense of operational competence. It is the Bush administration in a nutshell.''

Quite frankly, the director of FEMA, Michael Brown, should resign immediately, or he should be fired. And we must help put people's lives back together immediately by providing the health care and the housing and the mental health care and the services and the education, all of the basics that people deserve, who live in the wealthiest country in the world.

The incompetence and the indifference demonstrated by the administration in responding to this tragedy was shocking, but it was not really surprising. Does anyone doubt that if this sort of devastation had taken place in the communities where the small percentage of people who are benefiting from the Bush administration tax cuts live, the response would have been swift and efficient? Can you imagine Bush fund-raisers desperately clinging to their roofs, waiting for days to be rescued?

This indifference to the most vulnerable among us is not isolated to this tragedy; it is part and parcel of a systemic problem that seeks to make a large sector of our population invisible.

Many people viewing the human tragedy left in Katrina's wake could not recognize the images that they were seeing. They thought they were witnessing a tragedy in Somalia or Haiti or the Sudan. They think to themselves, they think, this does not look like the America that I know. Some have even come to refer to the survivors of this catastrophe as refugees, as if the image of the survivors they are seeing are too foreign for them to recognize them as Americans.

The people you see on television are not refugees; they are Americans. They

are Americans. And for some of us, though, let me just say, for some of us, this is an America that we know very well, an America that is often swept under the rug by lawmakers and the media.

The truth is, there are almost 36 million Americans living in poverty in the United States. There are more than 15 million living in extreme poverty.

What does that mean? According to the Census Bureau, it means that a family of three is living on less than $14,680 a year. They define extreme poverty as half of that. In 2003, the number of children living in poverty, this number grew by a half a million. Since President Bush took office, the number of poor people in America has grown by 17 percent. Is this the real state of this ownership society that we keep hearing about?

It is unacceptable. The Bush administration policies of tax cuts for the wealthy and cutting funding from the programs that provide for economic and domestic security in order to pay for this unnecessary war in Iraq are only making matters worse. That is why we must call for the President to develop a plan to eliminate poverty by 2010.

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the gentleman from Mississippi for yielding, and also to the gentleman from Louisiana, I want to thank him for his leadership and his hard work 24/7 in helping communities, your communities, work through this devastation, and also in leading this Congress in an effective response. We stand with the gentleman from Louisiana. Our constituents extend their desire to help in whatever way possible and to help in a very real way.

Mr. Speaker, I said earlier, and I have to say this again, that the world is watching. The world is watching as our Nation has been exposed. If anyone has ever doubted that there are two Americas, Hurricane Katrina and our government's shameful response have made this division very clear.

New Orleans is a city where 65 percent of the population was black. Nearly 30 percent, or one in three, were living below the poverty line. Twenty-one percent of the households earned less than $10,000 a year. Eighty-four percent of the people living in poverty in New Orleans were black. People died because they were poor and black and young and old and disabled. The incompetence and the indifference demonstrated by this administration in responding to this tragedy was really quite shocking, but it was not surprising.

For some of us, however, this is an America that we know very well. It is an America that has often been swept under the rug by lawmakers and the

media. This is the America that many of us know, and that is why the Congressional Black Caucus and so many in this House fight each and every day against these obscene tax cuts for the wealthy, and Medicaid and housing and health care budget cuts.

This is the America that I know, and this is why I have said over and over again that the war against Iraq, based on distortions and false information, did not have to be fought. We did not have to spend over $300 billion and deplete the resources that could have gone to domestic security, economic security, and taken care of our people right here at home.

Each and every Member of Congress should be frightened to death, seeing the lack of preparedness and the unacceptably slow and deadly response by our government. People died who would not have died if our government had responded quickly and efficiently. This is a crime.

Each and every Member of Congress has had a glimpse of what could happen in their districts should a natural disaster or, God forbid, a terrorist attack occur in the future.

Now Americans have risen to the occasion and asked what they could do to help. And after listening to a very disappointing briefing by Cabinet Members and, however, listening to Members of Congress from affected districts who, in spite of the odds, again have been responding around the clock to the survivors of this devastation in heroic ways, I have a few thoughts that I think we should do immediately.

Well, of course, we must recognize, first of all, and thank individuals and organizations who have continued with monetary donations and also providing donations of medicine, clothing, bedding, and hygiene articles. But do my colleagues know what? The Federal Government must step up to the plate and lead this effort. We must help find temporary transitional housing so that people can live with dignity and respect until they can return home.

And we must insist that the Red Cross hire staff, and many of us have had experience working with the Red Cross; they need to hire staff and volunteers who reflect the populations that they serve, such as African Americans and Latino volunteers and staff. They should be brought in.

Mental health professionals should also be sensitive to, and they should be of, the diversity of the affected populations and understand the cultural background of those who have been traumatized. And they should understand, quite frankly, that they just left a war zone, and post-traumatic stress syndrome will be setting in. And we must insist that the rebuilding process takes into account the populations who have been displaced. Developers should not just come in and create a city where no one can afford to return home. There must be affordable housing and good-paying jobs for those survivors of this devastation.

Also, we must ensure that survivors' losses are not compounded by financial institutions. Credit card late fees and penalties and mortgages, all of these issues must be addressed, and we must make sure that our Americans are protected from predatory lenders at this time of extreme need.

Let me just say, quite frankly, we must not allow military recruiters to take advantage of the misfortune of hurricane survivors. They should not be allowed to access temporary housing and shelters to recruit the destitute and the vulnerable. As the proud daughter of a 25-year career military officer, I honor and thank our service men and women for their bravery and service, but I do not believe that recruiting traumatized survivors of this hurricane is the right thing to do.

The world is watching, and I thank the gentleman from Mississippi (Mr. Thompson) and the gentleman from Louisiana (Mr. Jefferson) for leading the way.

General Leave

Mr. Speaker, as the questions surrounding the Bush administration's case for war continue to mount, and the administration continues to stonewall, the American people deserve answers.

I want to read from an editorial from yesterday's Los Angeles Times. It says: ``Scandals metastasize. That is the pattern since Watergate. What starts out looking like a small, isolated incident gradually reveals itself to be a part of a larger abuse of power. Meanwhile, an unraveling cover-up adds new elements. Is that happening now with the scandal over White House leaks of the identity of a CIA agent?''

As new elements of this unraveling cover-up are revealed, we should not lose sight of the larger abuse of power and the real scandal here.

As Chris Matthews said on Hardball on July 24: ``The larger scandal in this White House/CIA leak story is not just who leaked the name of an undercover agent, but whether we were given a case for war, the deciding factor for many of us, knowing that it didn't hold water. As we work to find our way out of Iraq, we should focus a bit . . . on how we got in.''

Mr. Speaker, the American people deserve answers.

I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time and for his very diligent and hard work on the Rules Committee, but also his hard work in terms of addressing the issues relating to this energy conference report.

Once again, and I want to talk a little bit about the substance, this administration and the Republican leadership, I believe, quite frankly, have put the profits of their friends in the energy industry ahead of the needs of the American people, ahead of the needs of our economy and our environment. Instead of reducing high gas prices, and I know in California we have some of the highest gas prices, and these gas prices are squeezing businesses and consumers at the pump. This bill, unfortunately, provides over $12.8 billion in giveaways to the oil and gas industries who are now making excessive profits and squeezing our consumers in terms of gas and oil prices.

Instead of encouraging the development of renewable energy and putting the United States economy at the forefront of the green revolution, this shortsighted bill, and that is what I say it is, it is very shortsighted, it will only increase our dependence on foreign oil. It will further subsidize corrupt and oppressive regimes throughout the world. It also puts our troops on the front lines, quite frankly, of our energy policy.

Instead of protecting our environment and our health by taking modest steps to curb greenhouse gas emissions and increase vehicle gas mileage, this bill would allow oil and gas companies to further pollute our skies, our water and our environment without paying the consequences. The health of the American people, I believe, is quite at risk as a result of this bill.

We need a comprehensive energy bill with a vision for the future that embraces ingenuity, reduces our chronic addiction to fossil fuels, fights global warming, which we all recognize is a huge problem. Just look at the weather changes this year. Last year. We have got to address global warming. This bill could do that. It could help us address pollution. It could help us protect our planet. But it puts our economy unfortunately on the wrong path rather than on the path to long-term sustainability.

While I want to commend our ranking member for at least making this bill much better than what it was, from what we remember when it left this body, it is still a bill that I believe forces us to rely on foreign energy sources rather than move us toward energy independence. I thank the gentleman from Massachusetts for the time. Unfortunately, I am going to have to vote against this bill.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in opposition to H.R. 5.

Proponents of this legislation make numerous false claims.

They claim that ``tort reform'' will magically reduce doctors' skyrocketing malpractice premiums.

But the truth is that even a spokesman for the American Insurance Association couldn't promise price reductions with tort reform.

Supporters also claim that capping non-economic damages will make malpractice insurance more affordable for doctors.

But the truth is that the example set by my home state of California's MICRA law proves this isn't the case. Enacted in 1975, it wasn't until after 1988, when California passed insurance reform under Proposition 103 that malpractice insurance rates began to stabilize.

Proponents even claim that this bill will protect patients' rights.

But the truth is that H.R. 5 would strip away the rights of patients, especially women, seniors, children, and lower income families.

But Mr. Speaker, let's give credit where credit is due. This bill does protect someone:

It protects HMOs, the insurance industry and the pharmaceutical companies.

Mr. Speaker, instead of false claims and gifts to HMOs, we need a bill like the Conyers-Dingell substitute that was not made in order.

Unlike H.R. 5, the Conyers-Dingell bill is balanced and would eliminate frivolous lawsuits, increase competition, and reduce costs, without sacrificing crucial protections.

Let's be real, Mr. Speaker. This bill is yet another example that shows where Republican priorities lie--with their contributors--HMOs and insurance companies.

Patients and people deserve more.

I urge my colleagues to reject the false claims and vote ``no'' on

Mr. Speaker, I join my colleagues from both sides of the aisle in strong opposition to CAFTA.

Mr. Speaker, this trade agreement is a complete failure on all levels. The defeat of CAFTA is the only option.

Mr. Speaker, what we need is not just free trade, but fair trade.

What we need is a trade agreement that supports domestic manufacturers, while promoting labor standards overseas.

What we need is a trade agreement that protects our environment and stops corporations from trampling local governments.

And most importantly, what we need is a trade agreement that doesn't turn back the clock and deny access to lifesaving medicine to people suffering from diseases like HIV/AIDS.

Generic competition has reduced the cost of medicine and made access to treatment a possibility in developing countries, but DR-CAFTA puts profits over people and sacrifices access to medication to drug industry greed.

Experts estimate that in some DR-CAFTA countries, drug costs could increase as much as 800 times.

People will be dying in order to promote the profits of the pharmaceutical industry. It is morally outrageous, and it sets a horrible precedent for future trade agreements.

DR-CAFTA is an absolute failure on every count. We have all learned from 10 years of failed NAFTA policies, and we cannot and we must not repeat those mistakes.

The administration needs to go back to the table and develop a trade agreement that reduces our trade deficit, upholds labor and environmental standards and protects the access to lifesaving medicines for those who need them most.

This bill must be defeated. I urge a ``no'' vote.

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the gentlewoman for yielding me this time and for her leadership and consistent work on behalf of the American people regardless of what issue and what bills we are dealing with today. I want to say that I join her today in opposition to this rule and to the underlying bill. It is fundamentally flawed not only for what it does, but for what it fails to do.

Mr. Speaker, if this bill were made law, we would still have well over 44 million people in our country uninsured. Something is wrong. Something is fundamentally wrong where in the wealthiest Nation in the world we have 44 million uninsured. Where, quite frankly, is the morality in that? Under this bill, of the 45 million uninsured Americans in this country, only 600,000 people would move into coverage, while 10,000 workers with coverage would be pushed off of their current plans.

Not only does this bill fail to provide any significant coverage for the uninsured, it also puts women and girls at risk by preempting very strong State laws. Specifically, the bill overrides contraceptive protections in 21 States that currently ensure access to contraceptives and treatments for sexually transmitted diseases. Clearly, Mr. Speaker, this bill puts women and girls at risk and makes empty promises to millions of uninsured Americans in desperate need of health care.

Instead of considering this bill, we should be debating the real question: How do we begin to put people before profits in our own health care system? Millions of Americans are calling on Congress to address this question by debating and voting on meaningful proposals, like universal health care, reimportation of prescription drugs, and allowing HHS to negotiate drug prices for Medicare recipients. It is time for Congress to wake up and take a hard look at our broken health care system. It is time for us to make a real effort at reform.

Mr. Speaker, H.R. 525 does nothing to expand health care to those who need it the most, and it undermines vital protections for women and girls. As a former small business owner, I know from years of experience the difficulties small businesses face due to a lack of consistent cash flow to afford these payments. Profitability for small businesses to afford health care contributions should really be addressed, and that is what we should be talking about today.

What this bill should do is assist small employers or employees in affording premium payments. I am sure that is why 69 local Chambers of Commerce, the National Governors Association, 41 attorneys general, Blue Cross/Blue Shield, and over 1,300 business, labor and community organizations oppose H.R. 525. This bill is bad for the health of our country.

Mr. Chairman, let me thank my distinguished colleague from California, the Ranking Member of the International Relations Committee for his leadership and commitment to addressing the global HIV/AIDS pandemic. And I also want to thank the Chairman, Henry Hyde for his dedication and willingness to work with me on this important issue over the last several years.

Mr. Speaker, this amendment is completely unnecessary. While I appreciate the efforts of the Chairman to improve it, the real problem is that it reinforces the prostitution pledge--an underlying policy that I believe is fatally flawed, and I want to tell you why.

In 2003 I traveled to Zambia as part of a Congressional Delegation examining food security and HIV/AIDS in Africa. We visited the Chirundu region, on the border with Zimbabwe, where delays in processing travel had forced many truckers to wait for months before they could cross the border.

The Chirundu region is incredibly poor. But because the truckers were still receiving their per diem and had time to waste, many poor and destitute women were drawn there to sell their bodies in exchange for money to buy food and provide clothing and shelter for their families.

Thankfully, the USAID Cross Border Initiative was reaching out to the truckers and these women, to ensure that they were educated about the dangers of sex work, about the risks of HIV/AIDS, and about the need to protect themselves.

These women trusted the USAID program to help them, because even as it encouraged them to find other sources of income, and tried to educate and protect them from HIV, it did not cast judgment on them for trying to feed their families.

By requiring organizations to formally oppose prostitution, we hinder their ability to reach out to sex-workers and teach them about the dangers of HIV.

Such a policy runs counter to good public health practices, and effectively denies vital HIV prevention services and education to women.

We need to fix this broken, misguided policy.

Mr. Speaker, Mr. Watt, CBC chairman, and I rise today to honor the extraordinary life and achievements of Arthur A. Fletcher of Washington, DC. Known for his lifelong commitment to advancing civil rights and increasing educational and professional opportunity for African Americans and other minorities, Mr. Fletcher was a true pioneer in the movement for racial and socioeconomic equality in America. He passed away at his home in Washington on July 12, 2005 at the age of 80.

Mr. Fletcher was born in Phoenix, Arizona in 1924, but grew up in California, Oklahoma, Arizona and Kansas due to his father's career in the military. While attending high school in Junction City, Kansas, he organized his first civil rights protest after being told that African American student photographs would only be included in the back of the yearbook. Remaining in Kansas for college, he attended Washburn University in Topeka, earning degrees in political science and sociology, and later went on to earn a law degree and a Ph.D. in education.

Mr. Fletcher served in World War II under General George Patton, earning a purple heart after being shot while fighting with his Army tanker division. He went on to become a professional football player in 1950, joining the Los Angeles Rams and later the Baltimore Colts, where he was one of the team's first African American players.

Mr. Fletcher entered politics in 1954, working first on Fred Hall's gubernatorial campaign in Kansas, and later taking a post working for the Kansas Highway Commission. Central to his work in that position and in subsequent ones was his determination to use his knowledge of government contracts to encourage African Americans to bid on contracts and grow their businesses.

Mr. Fletcher lived in the San Francisco Bay Area during the late 1960s and later moved to Washington, where he served as a special assistant to the governor and was the first black candidate to run for lieutenant governor or any statewide office. In 1969, President Nixon appointed him assistant secretary of wage and labor standards in the Department of Labor. There he became best known for devising the ``Philadelphia plan,'' which set and enforced equal opportunity employment standards for companies with federal contracts and their labor unions.

Given Congresswoman Lee's history as a small business owner, we can personal attest to the positive impact of Mr. Fletcher's work to extend federal contracting opportunities to African Americans has had on the minority business community. As a federal contractor in the SBA 8A program in the 1980s, Congresswoman Lee was able to directly benefit from his vision and foresight with regard to getting minorities involved in business, as have countless others.

In 1972, Mr. Fletcher became the Executive Director of the United Negro College Fund, where he fought to extend equal educational opportunity to African Americans, and coined the slogan ``a mind is a terrible thing to waste.'' Known as ``the father of affirmative action,'' he was later asked to serve on the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights under Presidents Ford, Reagan and Bush as a commissioner, and later as chairman, until 1993. Prompted by a series of attacks on longstanding affirmative action policies in the mid-1990s, Mr. Fletcher ran for president in 1996, and later became president and CEO of Fletcher's Learning Systems and publisher of USA Tomorrow/The Fletcher Letter, Mr. Fletcher served as a delegate to the United Nations and as the chairman of the National Black Chamber of Commerce, and spent a great deal of time speaking at venues across the country on the benefits of affirmative action and equal opportunity,

Many have benefited from the affirmative action policies and Mr. Fletcher's unyielding

commitment and work for equal opportunity, Clearly, this giant of a human being has paved the way for the success of countless individuals. For this, we are deeply grateful.

During a time when bipartisanship cooperation is badly needed for addressing the critical issues of our time, Mr. Fletcher stands out as one who truly embodied this spirit. We personally remember his efforts at working ``both sides of the aisle,'' never forgetting what was fair and good for Black America was good for our Nation. We owe Mr. Fletcher a tremendous debt of gratitude for setting this exceptional standard of leadership.

On July 21, 2005, Mr. Fletcher's wife Bernyce, his three children and the rest of his family and friends will gather in Washington, DC to celebrate his extraordinary life. Mr. Fletcher's work as a presidential adviser and a champion of civil rights and affirmative action shaped the course of countless individual lives. Mr. Fletcher's tireless advocacy for equal opportunity made higher education and professional success possible for entire sectors of our society that otherwise would not have had those chances, and the effects of his activism will continue to be felt for generations to come. On behalf of the Congressional Black Caucus, we thank Mr. Fletcher for his truly invaluable contributions to our society, and for his work in making success, opportunity and the American dream possible for all people.

Mr. Speaker, our government has the solemn responsibility to protect our Nation from terrorism, as today, again, we pray for the people of London.

Our ability to do that was undermined, quite frankly, 2 years ago when the identity of one of our CIA agents whose work helps keep weapons of mass destruction out of the hands of terrorists was exposed.

This breach of our national security was not really an accident. This agent's name was leaked in an act that an unnamed administration official described as revenge, political retribution against her husband for having dared to point out that the administration had knowingly distorted the evidence of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction.

It is now clear that President Bush's close adviser, Karl Rove, was involved in this breach of our Nation's security, and he should go. If the administration wants to have any credibility at all when they say that they want to protect the American people, then they should fire Karl Rove and anyone else who was involved in compromising our national security for petty political gain.

Mr. Chairman, I rise in strong support of the Waters' Amendment and in strong opposition to H.R. 3199, the USA PATRIOT and Intelligence Reform Act of 2005.

``National security letters'' subpoena personal records including telephone, internet, financial and consumer documents, but almost all records are included in this category.

The Waters' Amendment protects the rights of those individuals who are mentally incompetent, under undue stress, at risk for bodily harm or losing their employment from being forced to disclose information.

It is an honest attempt to reinstate some balance to protect those who are among the most vulnerable under this legislation.

But the underlying bill, Mr. Chairman, like the original PATRIOT Act, continues to trample on civil liberties. But this bill goes further. It makes fourteen of the most egregious components of the PATRIOT Act permanent. This is outrageous.

This bill damages fundamental freedoms:

by invading medical privacy

by allowing the FBI to search in any location showing minimal justification

by allowing for sneak and peak, national security letters, and roving ``John Doe'' wire tap provisions

by forcing libraries to police their patrons (an act that this body just voted to overturn I might add)

and by stripping Congress of the right to review and amend these provisions.

These all are examples that blatantly undermine our constitution and do nothing to make us safer.

Mr. Chairman, all of us understand the need to balance civil liberties with national security. And we can do this without sacrificing one for the other.

Mr. Chairman, simply said, this bill is absolutely overreaching. The Waters amendment protects the rights of those who are the overlooked victims of national security letters--upholding the constitution is patriotic, even in times of national security crises.

Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time and for his leadership.

Let me just say I rise today of course in opposition to this amendment. This amendment, quite frankly, would have Congress stick its head in the sand and deny the reality that things need to change in Iraq.

First, Mr. Chairman, the Republican leadership is continuing to stifle debate on the war in Iraq. Even worse, it is an effort to marginalize and silence any critics of this administration's policies in Iraq. This is unacceptable and undemocratic. It is outrageous that the Republican leadership has made in order only one amendment on Iraq. Two of the four amendments dealt with Iraq, which I submitted to the Committee on Rules. One amendment asked for the administration to present just basically a plan for withdrawal and the other making it a policy that the United States should not have permanent military bases in Iraq. Not surprisingly, the Republican leadership chose not to allow debate on either of them. What in the world are they afraid of?

Secondly, Mr. Chairman, many of the fundamental assumptions in this amendment are just plain wrong. This amendment would have us stay the course by ignoring the realities about the war in Iraq: realities like the fact that we were misled into this war; realities like the fact that there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq; realities like the fact that the administration has no plans on how to end the war; realities like the fact that our brave troops have become the rallying point for the insurgency; realities like the fact that our occupation has become a recruiting tool for foreign terrorists; and realities like the fact that our Nation, our Nation, is less safe as a result of this war.

An article in Sunday's Boston Globe reported on two studies of foreign fighters streaming into Iraq. The studies separately concluded that a majority of the foreign fighters are not foreign terrorists, but have become radicalized by the war itself.

And if this is not disturbing enough, yesterday's L.A. Times featured a column that outlined potentially new partnerships starting up between the leaders of Iraq and Iran. This emerging relationship has the potential to destabilize the Middle East and even to have our worst fears realized.

Mr. Chairman, reports like these are critical as to why this Congress should have a free, fair, and honest debate on Iraq and we should have it now.

Madam Chairman, let me first thank our ranking member for yielding me this time, and I also thank him and the gentleman from Illinois (Chairman Hyde) for their continuing bipartisan efforts reflected not only in this bill but in many of the bills which we work on in the Committee on International Relations.

With regard to this bill, together, and I want to thank them for their efforts on this, we were able to incorporate the provisions which I offered on minority recruiting, hiring, and contracting at the State Department and also helping to support the development of predictive models on famine in sub-Saharan Africa into the text of this bill. So I want to thank the gentleman from California (Mr. Lantos) and the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Hyde) for that.

While this bill represents a very diligent effort, a bipartisan effort, I am deeply concerned that the Committee on Rules made in order many ideologically driven amendments. The Republican leadership continues to stifle any debate on the most pressing issues of the day, especially the quagmire in Iraq. Silencing critics of the administration policies in Iraq is really an abuse of power and really is very devoid of the democratic values that many are trying to spread throughout the world.

I offered four critical amendments to this bill, one asking the administration to just present to Congress a plan for withdrawal of troops from Iraq; another one stating that the United States should have a policy stating that we should have no permanent military bases in Iraq. Those amendments, of course, were not ruled in order, again stifling debate. I offered also an amendment that would allow for 40 percent of the funds used for the Colombian Andean Counterdrug Initiative to be used for alternative economic development. Drugs are ravishing communities here in America, and this would provide a way out of that in terms of ensuring that farmers had other types of crops to grow and had this alternative economic development. That amendment was defeated.

I offered an amendment also requiring that only a democratically elected government of Haiti should be eligible for U.S. taxpayer funds. That is not controversial or it should not be controversial. That should be a bipartisan effort. Instead, Madam Chairman, unfortunately, we will consider the dangerous divisive amendments like the ones, with all due respect, offered by the Chair of our committee who wants to withhold funds from the United Nations and also the one by the gentlewoman from Florida (Ms. Ros-Lehtinen), which, once again, on Iraq, we have no way to offer an amendment which disagrees with the position of that amendment.

I do not think anyone questions the effort in terms of the chairman with regard to UN reform. We all believe there is need of UN reform. But I think it is very dangerous, as many have said, to withhold dues toward this end in terms of this provision of this bill.

Mr. Chairman, I rise in complete opposition to the Smith amendment.

This amendment guts, it guts the prevention section of our fistula prevention efforts and is a direct assault on birth control and comprehensive family planning. Comprehensive family planning includes any measure that saves a woman's life, especially in the event of prolonged, life-threatening labor which occurs in the case of obstetric fistula.

We are all fighting to prevent and treat obstetric fistula, a condition that tears apart the lives of young women whose bodies are not fully developed and obstructed prolonged labor occurs. But I am very disappointed that the bipartisan compromise that was brokered in committee in preventing obstetric fistula and providing medical treatment for its survivors is now being dismantled. We have to be realistic, and we must put our politics aside and put women and their babies first. Making birth control more available and accessible is one of the most effective ways to give women the ability to prevent high- risk pregnancies and to reduce the incidence of fistula.

The Smith amendment is a direct assault on birth control and comprehensive family planning. The Smith amendment is unacceptable, and I urge my colleagues to oppose this amendment.

Mr. Speaker, on July 11, 2005, I missed rollcall votes Nos. 363 and 364. Had I been present, I would have voted ``aye'' on H. Con. Res. 168 and H. Res. 333.