Floor Statements

Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

I appreciate the gentleman mentioning me. I just want to explain, I hadn't really expected to be here, but as I was walking by, I thought I heard someone yelling, The plane, boss, the plane, and I wanted to come in and see what was happening.

Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members have five legislative days to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material on the subject of my Special Order tonight.

Thank you, Madam Speaker.

Madam Speaker, I rise with a sad duty, although also a proud one. It is a chance for our colleagues to mourn the death and celebrate the life of one of the ablest and most principled people ever to serve as a Member of this body, the late Father Robert Drinan.

Madam Speaker, I will include for the Record of these proceedings the eulogies that were given at his funeral mass last Thursday by two of his fellow Jesuits, the Reverend John Langan and Professor Ladislas Orsy; by John DeGioia, the President of Georgetown University, where he taught for so many years; by our colleague Senator Edward Kennedy; and by former Ambassador Max Kampelman. The Speaker also gave a eulogy, which she herself inserted in the Record.

Madam Speaker, Bob Drinan was an extraordinary man. He had several careers, any one of which would have been extremely impressive. He was a Member of this body for only 10 years. By Congressional standards, that is not a long career, and many people are surprised to learn it was only 10 years, because his impact on this body and through this body, this country and this world was so significant. He was a man of such force of intellect and strength of character and energy and determination that he made 10 years here do more than many do in 30 or more years.

He was a prolific author of serious and thoughtful books. As I said in Massachusetts on Saturday, Father Drinan wrote more books than some high officials in this town have ever read.

He was a very distinguished educator. Had he been nothing but the Dean of Boston College Law School, and two of our colleagues who attended that law school during his deanship, the gentleman from Massachusetts, Mr. Markey and the gentleman from Virginia, Mr. Scott, will be addressing us soon, had he simply been that dean for 16 years when he helped make that into the first rate educational institution it is today, that would have been a significant career.

Then on leaving this place, he spent 26 years teaching at Georgetown. At 86, Bob Drinan was a vigorous and engaging teacher who was widely sought after by students interested in the intellectual stimulation that they got from him.

Now, with all of this, he was, of course, a Jesuit priest, and it was striking to me last Thursday here in Washington, Saturday at Boston College, to see the justifiable pride that his fellow Jesuits had in this man. And not just their pride in him, but their pride and gratitude that he remained first and foremost a member of that Jesuit community, an extra community of people who have made such contributions to education and other important causes in this country.

But what was particularly striking was the gap between the immensity of his accomplishments, the dignity of his intellect and his person. No one was ever less inclined to stand on ceremony. He was a down-to-earth individual. People who met him, and simply met him without knowing who he was, although that became increasingly harder as his fame grew, would be surprised to learn that he was a man of such accomplishments.

He was a delight to be with. He was one of the most irreverent reverends you will ever meet, and did not need ceremony, did not need any kind of false dignity. He had the talents.

What I want to talk about now is the common theme in that multiplicity of careers, of teacher and law school dean and Member of Congress and priest and author.

We have a lot of debate in our society and American politics about morality in politics, what is the role of morality in politics, and there are some who style themselves as very religious, who believe that they are the exemplars of morality in politics and who have been critical of people like Father Drinan and said that he failed in that task.

Absolutely the contrary is true. Father Drinan's life was dedicated to public morality. Few people worked as consistently and effectively to bring a moral tone to the relationships we have with each other.

Now, people have said, ``well, what about on some of these individual matters?'' Let's be very clear. This is a man who lived by an extraordinary exacting moral code personally. He was a priest. He was a priest for over 60 years and a member of the Jesuit community. As a Member of Congress, he served the Jesuit community in Georgetown. When he went back to his district, it was the Jesuit community at Boston College. He voluntarily subjected himself to the very stringent discipline that the Jesuit community and priests in general follow.

In 1980, when he was ordered by Pope John Paul II not to run again for Congress, that was a decision that caused him great anguish. It denied him the chance to do something that he thought was terribly important to his very being, and he wished that he could reverse the decision. But when it became clear that that decision could not be reversed, there was no hesitation.

People who want to talk about living by a moral code should look at the example of this very important Member of Congress with great accomplishments behind him who voluntarily left this body because the moral code of the priesthood to which he had committed himself required him to do that.

So in his personal life, he lived by the code of celibacy and of obedience and of poverty. And it was a voluntary decision, and anyone who knew him knew that he had talents which would have allowed him to break those bonds, but he didn't see them as bonds, he saw them as an essential part of his being.

So for those who wonder about his dedication and personal morality, look at his life. Look at this man, who at 86 awoke 10 days ago feeling ill, feeling very sick, and ignored the advice of others to stay home and went to class to teach at 86 and collapsed in class, because he had a sense of duty and an insistence on living by that personal code that no one could deny.

On the other hand, he did not believe, and I do not claim that this is something he told me, he was a man who taught in his life by example as well as articulately. As the Speaker said in her eulogy, he quoted Saint Francis of Assisi, who said, ``Preach the gospel, and sometimes use words,'' and Bob Drinan preached the gospel by his life and his life's work very effectively.

I believe that his view was that, yes, he was happy to follow a stringent moral code personally that few human beings would be able to do with the dedication and discipline that he did for as long as he did, but he also felt that that was his personal choice. It was a choice that he would urge on others. He was a member of that important religious community, and through that religious community, yes, he would convey that message.

But he did not believe, and this is what is critical, that it was legitimate to use the coercive mechanism of government to impose his personal choices on others, and that is the distinction that Father Drinan stands for. In those matters of life where we affect each other, where human beings come together and impact each other, than morality must guide our actions.

I would caution many of my liberal friends who say, well, we don't want to have morality in politics, because they are reacting against people who would use the government to impose personal choices on others. That is not morality, and the problem there is not that they are imposing morality in politics, but that they are intruding politics into personal lives.

What Father Drinan stood for in his writings, as a Member of Congress, as an activist, as an advocate, as a teacher, was that in those areas of life where we come together and affect each other, we are obligated to follow a moral code, and that is a moral code which focused on the dignity of human beings and the right of every human being to be treated decently, because that was the common core of Bob Drinan.

What issues did he care about? He cared most about those issues where there was a danger that some people would be mistreated. In the fifties and sixties, he was the leader in the fight against racism and for racial justice, one of the great examples of wrongdoing in American history, of people of African descent being mistreated. Bob was a leader in the civil rights movement.

He was a great civil libertarian, opposing efforts to oppress people who spoke in terms that other people did not like.

He was a great defender of the Jewish community, against anti- Semitism.

He then became the founder, more than any other individual, of the doctrine of international human rights. Before the seventies, there were people on the left who criticized governments on the right for not respecting human rights. There were people on the right who criticized left governments for not following human rights.

Bob Drinan was one of those who forged the doctrine that we could demand respect by any government of any political stripe, that they respect the rights of individuals, and he was a leader in his writings and his work here in the Congress. That was the central core, whether it was racism or anti-Semitism, whether it was governments denying people basic rights, whether it was our own government denying the rights of our own citizens in the name of security.

He was a very good lawyer. In fact, in the seventies, he was working hard on rewriting a criminal code which some of the people on the left thought was too tough, because he understood that people had a right to be protected against those who would violate their rights and property. But he also believed deeply from his experience that there was no need for the government to disregard basic human rights in protecting all of us, and there were no more articulate defenders of that principle.

When he stood up against Richard Nixon, it was because of his conviction that the Nixon administration was defying fundamental human rights, a conviction which, of course, proved to be absolutely true.

That is the common thread. And Bob Drinan believed, and this is very important I think to note, that it was as a priest that he wrote, as a priest that he served here, as a priest that he advocated for human rights, because he genuinely believed that in his insistence that we treat each other with the dignity that human beings are entitled to, he was following the word of his God as he understood it, a God that created in his mind human beings with this inherent dignity.

So this is a man whose life had many parts, but they had a common theme. They had a common theme, whether it was in his religion or his politics or his writing or his teaching. It was that we owe each other the duty of respect and dignity. And, yes, morality belongs in politics, and Bob Drinan's life, both as a Member of Congress, as a political activist afterwards, yes, it was dedicated to morality in politics.

He was a man who understood that there is no greater political immorality than an unjust war; that nothing more greatly degrades human beings than wars which violate the doctrine of the just war. And he came to this Congress as a leading opponent of the Vietnam War at a time when it was not the most popular thing, and up until his last days he was a leader in agitation against another unjust war as he saw it.

So I am very proud to be the inheritor of that tradition. I do not claim to exemplify all aspects of it. But I do share with him this commitment, that people have a right to make personal choices; that your personal choices ought to be guided by a moral code; and that we ought to urge on each other that we bring out the best. But that when it comes to using the coercive mechanisms of the government, the central point is to make sure that people are treated fairly by each other, that the role of morality in politics is to enforce the fundamental right of each person to be treated with dignity and respect.

Bob Drinan was an exemplar of what is appropriately morality in politics. We will miss him terribly, but we have, enduring, his example to drive us forward.

Now, Madam Speaker, I want to yield to one of my colleagues, who is the only member of the Massachusetts delegation who was able to serve with Bob Drinan, one of the few Members who served with him and who has the dual distinction of both serving with him and being his student at Boston Law School and is a man who very much carried out the ethic of respect for

human rights that Bob exemplified. The gentleman from Massachusetts, I yield him such time as he may consume.

I thank my colleague. And I would now recognize another colleague who is carrying on very much that work. The gentleman from Massachusetts who just spoke alluded to Father Drinan's role in Central America, and our next speaker is a man who along with our late colleague Joe Moakley played a very important role in carrying forward that work of bringing people to justice which had begun with Father Drinan.

I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. McGovern).

I thank the gentleman. Let me call on another of Father Drinan's former students who now serves on the committee where Father Drinan did such good work, the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Scott).

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for his contribution, and now let me call on another member of the Massachusetts delegation who did not serve with Father Drinan here, but has provided very important service to the Commonwealth of Massachusetts in the State legislature as a leader during the time that Father Drinan was here and another one who carries on in that tradition, the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Olver).

I thank the gentleman, and finally, very appropriately, a colleague of Father Drinan's in the fight against racism on the central, moral fights then and now in this country, the delegate from the District of Columbia, a woman who prior to coming here was a leader, as she still is, in the movement against racism and for civil rights, and in that capacity, worked very closely then and later with Father Drinan who paid her the ultimate political tribute I think of becoming her constituent. Although I think he was still voting absentee up in my district, I will tell the gentlewoman, but you had his body. I had his vote. It was a good trade. I recognize now the gentlewoman from the District of Columbia (Ms. Norton).

I think the gentlewoman would agree that he was confident there would not have been much daylight between our voting records. So he could do either one.

I thank the gentlewoman.

As I summarize, let me say I think there is a common theme here. We have discussion again about the global morality of politics, and the role of morality in our lives. Father Robert Drinan exemplified that. In his personal life for over 60 years a priest, he gave the exemplary disciplined life that he chose as a priest and adhered to a code of personal morality that very few human beings achieve with a dedication and a belief.

At the same time, he recognized that the personal moral choices he made as a priest, and that he urged others to make, were those personal choices and voluntary choices, and he understood the difference in the scope of governance. He understood that there is a private morality and a public morality. Not that they are in conflict, but that they cover different spheres, and where human beings interact with each other, it is required that government set the rules.

He was a man who did as much to make sure that those interactions were governed by a set of moral principles founded on what was for him a fundamental religious belief and the dignity of man, and in his side- by-side example of a strict code of personal morality, which he followed as a matter of choice, and his insistence that government, when it became coercive, followed the morality of recognizing the dignity of all human beings, he helped us, if, when we listen and read the lesson of his life, to understand what for some people is a difficult decision.

I appreciate the indulgence of the House; I appreciate the Members who spoke and submitted information and material for this Record.

Mr. Speaker, I submit for printing in the Record the eulogies for Father Robert Drinan referred to previously.

St. Aloysius Church, Washington DC, February 1, 2007.

Homily for the Funeral of Robert Drinan, S.J.

(By John Langan, S.J.)

John XXIII, in his great encyclical, Pacem in terris

(1963), which was written exactly halfway through the course

of Robert Drinan's life, has a passage which puts before us

an important goal, the vision of a society of citizens

exercising and claiming rights: It is agreed that in our time

the common good is chiefly guaranteed when personal rights

and duties are maintained. . . If any government does not

acknowledge the rights of man or violates them, it not only

fails in its duty, but its order completely lack juridical

force.'' Pacem in terris (60-61)

A society built on the practice of rights is not so sweetly

transcendent as the holy mountain of feasting and joy which

Isaiah summons up for us; it is not so intimately and

delicately responsive as the virtue of charity or agape which

St. Paul commends to us. But it is essential to the

realization of the common good in a world which is marked by

enormous human diversity and intermittently intense social

conflict. It is a reality which protects those of us who are

neither beasts nor angels from our own worst impulses and

from the harms which others would do to us. It is the not the

realm of the best but of the imperfect good and the

necessary. It has been the favored realm of Anglo-American

jurisprudence and a refuge for those who suffered from brutal

and destructive social experiments carried on in the name of

ideology and religion. It is a realm which Robert Drinan, as

a distinguished American lawyer and professor of law, and

John Courtney Murray, the great American theologian, valued

and commended to other Catholics, especially for its

affirmation of religious liberty. It is a realm of ideas

which has enabled Catholicism to flourish in this country and

which has taught Catholicism important lessons about the

theory and practice of human rights, a cause to which Bob

Drinan devoted enormous amounts of his apparently

inexhaustible energy and many years of that life whose end we

now mourn. It is a realm which always needs to be defended,

but especially in times of fear and uncertainty when false

prophets would persuade us that the magnitude of some threat

justifies the overriding of those rights which constitute the

core of our liberty. It is a realm which we as Americans have

been anxious to extend, perhaps even beyond the limits of our

capabilities. In taking up the causes of South African

victims of apartheid, of Soviet Jews, of the disenfranchised

in Central America and the disappeared in the Southern Cone,

and of the Muslims of Darfur, and in arguing for effective

judicial protection for universal human rights, our friend

Robert was preaching the same values and ways of thinking as

he did in opposing segregation and capital punishment and

protecting civil liberties in this country.

For the most part, his advocacy of human rights harmonized

with the social and moral teaching of the Catholic church.

But it must be acknowledged that on the immensely painful

subject of abortion there was sharp conflict, a conflict

which I wish neither to minimize nor to revisit but only to

put into a larger context of common concern for the well-

being of women and children in a society wracked by moral

disagreement. This point also reminds us that the notion of

human rights is not transparent in its content but is often

used to express profound conflicts in a common legal

language. It is not what Bob would call a MIGA, it does not

``make it go away.'' In the matter of abortion, it is

important to remember that a decisive point of disagreement

for many Catholic politicians is about the appropriate limits

of state action and about the attainability of a stable

democratic consensus on a matter on which the major religious

and philosophical traditions reach conflicting conclusions,

not about the moral issue in itself or about Catholic

teaching. The shape of legislation can be a matter for

prudential disagreement, not an issue of faithfulness.

Three years after Bob began his career in Congress, Roe v.

Wade turned abortion from a contested legal issue to a

divisive political issue. This he had to live through, for in

addition to being an advocate for human rights, he was also a

practicing politician. This, in combination with his

priesthood, was the feature of his life which most attracted

the attention of the media and the general public. It was

also what made him particularly significant to his

colleagues; for here was a moral and religious leader who was

ready to walk the walk and talk the talk of politics with

them. In fact, it became clear to everyone that he enjoyed

doing so and that he was very good at it. In listening to

comments from various of Bob's colleagues over the years,

I heard a gratitude and a pride which arose from the fact

that he as a priest was ready to work alongside them in

the demanding though often derided task of legislation in

a modern democracy. This is an indispensable and noble

contribution to our common life, a vocation in itself. Bob

had the vision and the grace to combine two difficult

vocations in a way which strengthened the commitment and

the morale of his colleagues. His ability to do this was a

consequence of the fact that he lived what he was doing as

the work of justice, not merely the ambitious pursuit of a

career.

The contribution which he made as a priest in politics was

a suitable prelude to the work of his later years in

promoting the study of legal ethics and in founding the

Journal of Legal Ethics here at the Georgetown University Law

Center. Events of the last twenty years have presented a

series of disillusioning crises which have created widespread

public demands for reform of the profession and a continuing

need for careful scholarship and prudent judgment. This was a

work in which Bob could find a happy convergence of his

professional and priestly roles. It also provided an academic

and professional counterpart to the concern he always had for

the growth and the well being of those aides whom he called

his ``minions'' and whom he enjoyed for the generous energy

which they brought to political life. This energy was, of

course, their imitation of and response to his own enormous

energy and sharpness of focus. If Robert Drinan, was like

Christ and all Christians, a grain of wheat destined to fall

into the earth and die, as today's Gospel reminds us, he has

born much fruit in those supporters and aides and in the

generations of students who cherished him as one of the most

remarkable teachers they ever had and who have been filling

up the web page at the Law Center with testimony to his

impact and his dedication.

But the underlying unity of the incredible amount of work

he did as teacher, writer, speaker, political leader was his

commitment to his identity as a member of the Society of

Jesus and as a Catholic priest. When he was confronted with a

very stark and public choice, he made it clear what his own

priorities were. This may have puzzled and pained many of his

friends and colleagues, but it made it clear that his

commitment to the work of justice in the law and in politics

was truly an expression of his response to the love of God, a

response which affirmed that love and justice are indeed

bound together, but that neither requires a particular office

or role, that at the center of his being he would be God's

faithful servant first, last, and always and that this meant

he would continue to be a very American, very pragmatic

idealist, an advocate of the society of right in which the

work of justice still needed the dedication and guidance of

one who would remain priest and prophet.

I do not know what purgatory will be like for Bob. He would

dismiss any form of physical suffering or infirmity as a

trivial restraint on the desire of his heart for the good and

an empty distraction from the important work to be done, as

he did in the year before his death. I surmise that the

central part of his purgatory will be accepting that he has

indeed arrived in a jurisdiction where justice can be

attained without lawyers and where the administration is

reliably good and beyond impeachment. But I cannot imagine

that this will be a long or traumatic episode.

Through his eighty-six years he learned much and gave much

to his students, is colleagues, his country, and to his

community of vocation and choice, the Society of Jesus. As a

result, so many of us mourn him and look to him as an iconic

and exemplary figure, a man in whom the religious and

political issues of our age came together fruitfully, if not

always happily. We salute a life well lived for the good of

others. We recognize a Catholic son of New England, who

learned Protestant virtues and institutions and who came to

share Jewish joys and sorrows, and who in consequence became

more comprehensively Catholic and more universally human. We

give thanks for a man of talent who seized opportunities to

serve and a man of peace who was not afraid of conflict. We

give praise for a friend who gave generously of his time and

his knowledge to so many of us even while he remained

splendidly and eccentrically himself.

But in this task of capturing Bob's special union of the

vitally personal and the universally good, the deeply

Christian and the proudly American, I will give the last and

best word to our fellow Jesuit, Gerard Manley Hopkins, who

wrote in 1881 this sonnet:

``As kingfishers catch fire, dragonflies draw flame;

As tumbled over rim in roundy wells

Stones ring; like each tucked string sells, each hung bell's

Bow swung finds tongue to fling out broad its name;

Each mortal thing does one thing and the same:

Deals out that being indoors each one dwells;

Selves--goes itself; myself it speaks and spells,

Crying What I do is me: for that I came.

I say more: the just man justices;

Keeps grace: that keeps all his goings graces;

Acts in God's eye what in God's eye he is--

Christ--for Christ plays in ten thousand places,

Lovely in limbs, and lovely in eyes not his

To the Father through the features of men's faces.''

So we salute a man who has challenged our judgments of what

is truly important, who has given a superlative example of

generous service, and who never rested from his desire to do

the work of justice. As he said to me in what turned out to

be our final conversation, ``I do not rest in the daytime.''

He goes on one final trip back to the district, where he will

finally rest with his brother Jesuits in New England. We

pray--may God be with you, Bob, and may God be with us as we

take up our share in the great work. For, as Congressman

Hoyer reminded us the other day of the motto above the

Speaker's Rostrum in the House, where Bob spent his happiest

and richest years, ``In God We Trust.''

Mr. Speaker, when I hear some of my Republican colleagues leap to the defense of section 8, I can only compare that to learning that Ahmadinejad had applied for membership in B'nai Brith. We have been trying to defend section 8 against assault for some time.

One form of the assault has been formulaic rules that prevent all of the money that is appropriated from being spent. Because there is a lot of support for section 8, the administration has been unhappy when we have voted here more money than they have asked for. So they have had a series of formulaic restrictions that keep us from getting it all spent.

I will note, by the way, that the particular change here that the committee has recommended is supported by the National Association of Housing and Redevelopment Officials, the Council of Large Public Housing Authorities, and the Public Housing Authorities Directors Association. That is, all of those who administer section 8 through their organizations endorse it.

Here is the way it has worked. There were formulas put in there that kept some agencies from spending money which they received. That is, many agencies were given money that could not be spent and had not been spent that came out of the hide of agencies that needed to spend more. What this bill does is to make sure that every appropriation is spent; and as to those agencies that might be losing an allocation, in every case they are losing money that they had not been able to spend because they did not have the legal authority to do it.

This bill guarantees, and we will be here to make good on that guarantee, that any agencies that can say, well, we are not getting the same allocation that we got before, they will have reserves available to them on which they can draw. So we can guarantee that no one will be unable to serve everyone they are now serving.

What it does mean is that money which this formula has prevented from being spent in some agencies will now be spent. We will not give some agencies more than they can spend and some less. We will even it out.

And I stress again that the reserves will be available, and that is why every one of the agencies in this country that spends money on section 8, all of the public housing authorities have explicitly supported this particular change.

Council of Large Public Housing

Authorities,

Washington, DC, January 31, 2007.

Hon. David Obey,

Chairman, House of Representatives, Committee on

Appropriations, Washington, DC.

Dear Mr. Chairman: The Council of Large Public Housing

Authorities (CLPHA) represents 60 of the nation's largest

housing authorities that own and manage 40 percent of the

nation's public housing and administer over 30 percent of the

Housing Choice Voucher program. We are writing to support the

FY 2007 Joint Resolution in the House of Representatives.

CLPHA greatly appreciates the inclusion of an additional

$300 million for Public Housing Operating Fund in the

legislation and the $487 million increase in the Housing

Choice Voucher account. The increase in operating funds is a

good start in addressing the chronic under-funding of public

housing programs. Public housing is still significantly

under-funded and we look forward to working with Congress to

provide full funding for public housing.

CLPHA commends the House for unraveling the complicated and

inefficient funding system HUD has imposed on housing

authorities since 2004. By adopting a formula. that bases

funding on the most recent 12 months of leasing and cost data

the House action will guarantee funding for all vouchers in

use. The increase in funds, combined with the change in how

these funds are distributed ensure that housing authorities

do not have to reduce the number of families they currently

serve.

However, in order to effectively transition to this new

formula, housing authorities need access to currently

allocated funds to help them to offset losses and to increase

leasing levels in their communities. Congress must protect

these funds and prohibit HUD from recapturing them for either

punitive reasons or to meet a rescission target.

Thank you again for supporting public and assisted housing

programs. We look forward to working with you on these most

important issues.

Sincerely,

Sunia Zaterman,

Executive Director.

Madam Speaker, earlier this session I inserted into the Record a cogent editorial from the Boston Globe calling for the dismissal of Deputy Assistant Secretary Charles Stimson, who outrageously urged corporations in America to boycott attorneys who performed their duty as lawyers in defending people accused of violating the law who were incarcerated in Guantanamo. While Mr. Stimson has since been forced to apologize, the apology was an entirely unconvincing one, in which he claimed not to have meant what he clearly said. A recent article in The Washington Post by the very able writer Richard Cohen correctly questions the apology, makes clear once again how wildly outrageous Mr. Stimson's comments were, and concludes correctly that ``his words show that he is unfit for government service. . .'' I ask that Mr. Cohen's thoughtful column be printed here because it is our responsibility as elected officials to continue to protest Mr. Stimson's presence in our Government, particularly in a position where he should be advocating policies exactly the opposite of his call for the boycott of conscientious and courageous attorneys.

Deputy Assistant Secretary for the Indefensible

(By Richard Cohen)

``On the cold moonlit evening of March 5, 1770,'' writes

David McCullough in his magisterial ``John Adams,'' ``the

streets of Boston were covered by nearly a foot of snow.'' A

crowd set upon a lone British sentry at Boston's Province

House, taunting him. Quickly, reinforcements arrived, and so

did a larger crowd. Soon the crowd hurled snowballs, chunks

of ice, oyster shells and stones. The soldiers, now nine,

opened fire, killing five Bostonians--``bloody butchery,''

Samuel Adams called it. Only one lawyer would defend the

British soldiers. He was a different Adams--John Adams, a

good man on the path to being great.

I resurrect this tale about Adams because it is sorely

needed. Just this month, an official in the Bush

administration, a deputy assistant secretary of defense named

Charles D. Stimson, suggested that lawyers who defend

terrorism suspects being held at Guantanamo not only should

not do so but that their firms ought to be blackballed as a

result.

``I think, quite honestly, when corporate CEOs see that

those firms are representing the very terrorists who hit

their bottom line back in 2001, those CEOs are going to make

those law firms choose between representing terrorists or

representing reputable firms,'' he said in a radio interview.

You may want to read that again.

It's hard to know where to begin. Shall it be with the

notion that the Sept. 11 terrorists did not so much murder

about 3,000 people as hit the ``bottom line'' of American

corporations? This is a stunningly original take on that

awful day, an auditor's reading of history that Stimson, in

the spare time he deserves to have in abundance, might want

to apply to the bombing of Pearl Harbor or the burning of

Atlanta. I doubt that any CEO look at Sept. 11 as a bad day

at the office.

More to the point, what sort of lawyer--and Stimson is

one--not only thinks that a terrorism suspect does not

deserve counsel but that the counsel ought to be punished as

a result? It's hard to fathom a lawyer saying such a thing--

even hard to fathom it from a mere citizen.

It would be just a waste of my time, I suppose, to point

out that the Guantanamo suspects are just suspects, convicted

so far of nothing. In fact, some of them have been released

and others, arrested and held elsewhere, turned out to not be

the mass murderers and master criminals the government, in a

fit of hype, originally accused them of being. Anyone who

thinks all prosecutors speak nothing but the truth need only

familiarize themselves with the case of the lacrosse players

at Duke. There's a sad lesson in American jurisprudence for

you.

Naturally enough, Stimson's repudiation of everything John

Adams stood for produced some protest, condemnation and

outrage. Following the well-established Washington rule,

Stimson apologized, doing so in a letter to The Post. He

said his remarks did not reflect his ``core beliefs.'' He

did not blame his utterance on drugs, booze, Twinkies or a

deep depression; he merely said that his words had left

the wrong ``impression.'' With that, he has returned to

the obscurity from whence he came, his job presumably

secure.

I, for one, do not accept Stimson's apology. I think it is

insincerely offered and beside the point. What matters most

is that he retains his job, which means he retains the

confidence of his superiors in the government. How anyone can

have confidence in such a man is beyond me. There are only

two explanations, one inexcusable, the other chilling. The

first is that his bosses don't care. The second is that they

agree with him.

I would guess that Stimson strongly felt it was No. 2--

agreement. From the get-go, the Bush administration has taken

the position that anyone it detained on terrorism charges

was guilty. Throw away the key. No need for lawyers. No need

for judges. No need for anything except, of course, the word

of the authorities. In recent months, a more assertive

Congress and the courts have unaccountably challenged this

view, and the Bush administration has beaten a tactical

retreat on unchecked eavesdropping and the legality of trying

alleged terrorists before military commissions. Still, we all

know where its heart is on these matters. Justice is what the

administration says it is.

By now, any other administration would have fired Stimson,

apology or not. His words show that he is unfit for

government service, not to mention membership in the bar.

Fortunately for him, if and when someone does drop the ax,

some misguided lawyer, infused with the spirit of John Adams,

will defend him. I hope Stimson will forgive him.

Madam Speaker, I send to the desk a privileged concurrent resolution (H. Con. Res. 41) and ask for its immediate consideration.

Madam Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (H.R. 323) to amend section 5313 of title 31, United States Code, to reform certain requirements for reporting cash transactions, and for other purposes.

Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days in which to express themselves on this and to include therein extraneous material.

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

Madam Speaker, this is an example of sensible regulation because sensible regulation includes deregulation when that is appropriate.

The Committee on Financial Services reported this bill out last year. It passed the House. Surprisingly it managed not to make it through the Senate. The efficiency of that body failed us on this occasion apparently, but we are going to try again.

We believe in regulation, and this is an important area where we provide information to our financial detectives, and it is especially important with regard to terrorist financing.

But too much regulation can defeat the purpose for which regulation is intended, and we have a situation now where the banks are required to report every year on customers' transactions of $10,000 or more. Now, one of the things this bill would do is give the Secretary of the Treasury the authority to increase a dollar figure that has been left unadjusted for inflation for too long.

More importantly, we are talking now about the exemption that is given to what we call seasoned customers of the bank. When the banks are dealing, and this is particularly important for our community bankers, when they are dealing with people whom they know, with whom they have had regular and continuing relationships, having to report every time they do a transaction of $10,000 or more generates extra work for the bank, and I believe, if anything, interferes with the ability of the regulators to find what they should be looking for.

If we are telling people to find needles, we should not set about building them bigger haystacks. What this bill says is that where we are talking about regular customers, regular seasoned customers, they can apply for the exemption, which is in the control of the Secretary of the Treasury, with careful criteria.

And having received that exemption, as long as they remain seasoned customers of the same bank, that process does not have to be repeated every 2 years. It reduces the regulatory burden on banks, and it is particularly important to small banks.

I would ask at this point, Madam Speaker, under my general leave to include a letter to myself and the gentleman from Alabama from America's Community Bankers strongly endorsing this bill.

America's Community Bankers

Washington, DC, January 22, 2007.

Hon. Barney Frank,

Chairman, Financial Services Committee, House of

Representatives Washington, DC.

Hon. Spencer Bachus

Ranking Member, Financial Services Committee, House of

Representatives Washington, DC.

Dear Chairman Frank and Ranking Member Bachus: America's

Community Bankers is pleased to support H.R. 323, the

Seasoned Customer CTR Exemption Act of 2007. The legislation

would make important improvements to the current exemption

system for cash transaction reports (CTRs) by making it

easier to exempt the routine transactions of certain seasoned

business customers. H.R. 323 would more appropriately balance

the cost and benefits of the Bank Secrecy Act's CTR reporting

requirements. The legislation would also reduce the number of

CTRs filed on routine transactions of well-known, law abiding

customers.

We urge the full House of Representatives to adopt H.R. 323

and look forward to working with you to enact this important

legislation.

While we fully support H.R. 323, we urge the Committee to

modernize the Bank Secrecy Act further by increasing the

$10,000 threshold that triggers CTR filing. This threshold

has not been updated since 1970. Increasing the $10,000

trigger would more appropriately balance the reporting

obligations of depository institutions and the information

needs of law enforcement agencies.

Sincerely,

Robert R. Davis,

Executive Vice President and Managing

Director, Government Relations.

What this will do is to reduce the paperwork burden on the banks; it will ease the burden on the regulators. It will not diminish in any way the flow of information that is needed for those whose job it is to keep us safe.

Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

I thank the gentleman, and if the gentleman would yield.

I would certainly recommend the way this bill is being treated and received on both sides as a precedent that I hope will be followed.

Madam Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, I am sometimes thankful for small things--for example, the fact that I am not in charge of judging what pronouncement from the Bush administration is the most outrageous. While I do not have to pick the winner, I do want to note an entry that would be a strong contender for that title: the extraordinarily wrong-headed and morally flawed attack by Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense Cully Stimson on American lawyers who are defending people detained in Guantanamo. Not only does Mr. Stimson impugn people who have taken on an unpleasant job that is in the best traditions of the legal profession, and very much in the mainstream of American constitutional doctrine, he actually called on business leaders in this country to punish these lawyers economically for upholding these important American values.

As the Boston Globe editorial from January 16th points out, ``the right to counsel is a pillar of the U.S. justice system'' and the Globe correctly asserts that ``Stimson's boss, Defense Secretary Robert Gates, should go beyond the Pentagon's pro forma disavowal of these remarks and ensure that Stimson watches this `play out' from someplace other than a job at the Defense Department.''

It is intolerable for a high public official of the United States Government to try to inflict economic harm on lawyers for upholding American constitutional tradition. Cully Stimson's blatant unfitness for an important public position ought to be clear to even officials of the Bush administration. It is incumbent on the President, Mr. Speaker, to repudiate these outrageous sentiments and to take the only action that can reassure lawyers in America that they will not suffer from doing their duty--firing Mr. Stimson.

[From the Boston Globe, Jan. 16, 2007]

Another Pentagon Smear

When the shameful history of the Guantanamo detention

center is finally written, one of the few reassuring chapters

will be the way lawyers from many U.S. law firms have given

pro-bono representation to prisoners who have been denied

their Geneva Convention rights. It is especially outrageous

that the Pentagon official responsible for detainees has

maligned these lawyers and encouraged corporations to take

their legal business away from their firms.

In an interview last Thursday, deputy assistant secretary

of defense Cully Stimson said he found it ``shocking'' that

lawyers from prestigious firms were representing Guantanamo

detainees. ``I think, quite honestly,'' Stimson said, ``when

corporate CEOs see that those firms are representing the very

terrorists who hit their bottom line back in 2001, those CEOs

are going to make those law firms choose between representing

terrorists or representing reputable firms, and I think that

is going to have major play in the next few weeks. And we

want to watch that play out.''

Since the right to counsel is a pillar of the U.S. justice

system, Stimson's boss, defense secretary Robert Gates,

should go beyond the Pentagon's pro forma disavowal of these

remarks and ensure that Stimson watches this ``play out''

from someplace other than a job at the Defense Department.

Gates might also set the record straight by pointing out that

the only inmates at Guantanamo suspected of links to the

Sept. 11 attacks were brought there just recently, after long

being held in secret Central Intelligence Agency prisons

where they had no access to counsel whatsoever.

Twice, the Supreme Court has ruled that Guantanamo

detainees' rights are being denied by the Bush administration

in cases brought by the lawyers whom Stimson vilifies. In

another case on behalf of Guantanamo detainees in 2005, U.S.

District Judge Gladys Kessler said the petitioners' lawyers

are acting ``in the very finest tradition of the American

legal profession.'' It was a tradition established in part by

John Adams's representation of the British soldiers accused

in the Boston Massacre of 1770.

Stimson's remarks came just as critics of U.S. detention

policies were noting the fifth anniversary of the use of

Guantanamo as a center for indefinite imprisonment of persons

captured during the war in Afghanistan, or other fronts in

the war on terrorism. The administration should close

Guantanamo and try any detainees that it believes responsible

for acts of terror or war crimes in U.S. courts.

Congress's new Democratic majorities should repeal the law

passed last year that denies detainees their habeas corpus

right to challenge their continued detention. That, like the

right to counsel, is another mainstay of the American legal

system that must not be a victim of the war on terror.

Madam Speaker, Tim Geithner, President of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, combined economic and political wisdom in a recent speech to the Council on Foreign Relations in which, according to the report of the speech in the Financial Times, he told that influential audience ``that the `political challenge' of sustaining support for integrating global economic integration `may be the most important economic challenge of our time.' ''

Mr. Geithner came to his current position with significant experience in the Treasury Department during the Clinton Administration, which makes him very well-positioned to understand how economic and political forces interact, and even more important, how they should interact if we are to achieve what is our national goal economically--significant growth that is widely shared.

I very much appreciate Mr. Geithner's thoughtful words, and I hope that people concerned about economic growth will accept the validity of his point so that we can all act together accordingly.

[From the Financial Times]

Wages Gap `Undermines Support for Free Trade'

(By Krishna Guha in Washington)

The widening gap between the rich and middle-class

Americans is undermining political support for free trade in

the US, the president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New

York, warned yesterday.

Tim Geithner told the Council on Foreign Relations that the

``political challenge'' of sustaining support for further

global economic integration ``may be the most important

economic challenge of our time.''

The New York Fed chief also warned that the inflow of

surplus savings from abroad could be distorting US asset

prices and keeping risk premiums artificially low across

financial markets.

His comments were made amid growing concern in US political

and business circles over the risk of a populist backlash

against free trade caused by rising inequality and a

protracted period of stagnation in median wages--the wages

earned by the average US worker.

While recent data show real wage growth has at last picked

up, many economists fear this could be short-lived.

Mr. Geithner said maintaining support for open markets

would be made more difficult ``because of what has happened

to the distribution of income and economic insecurity''.

He cited as big political problems the ``long-term increase

in income inequality'', the ``slow pace of growth in real

wages for the middle quintiles of the population'', increased

volatility in income and the greater exposure of families to

risks involved in financing retirement and healthcare.

Echoing views expressed by Larry Summers, his former boss

as Treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, Mr.

Geithner said it was ``not enough to explain that

globalisation is inevitable'' and protectionist policies were

self-defeating.

Better education and an improved safety net were a

``necessary part of the solution to this challenge''. But, he

warned, ``these reforms will have a long fuse and they may

not yield the hoped-for increase in support''.

Mr. Geithner cautioned that the low level of risk premiums

across asset markets was ``unusual'' and might not prove

lasting.

He said there were many sound reasons why risk premiums

might be low, including better monetary policy, strong

underlying productivity growth and better risk-sharing across

more globally integrated financial markets.

But he warned that the inflow of surplus savings from

abroad--including ``very substantial official accumulation of

dollar reserves'' by countries seeking to maintain fixed

exchange rates--could be distorting asset prices, sending the

wrong signals to savers and investors.

Mr. Geithner said these forces were ``surely transitory''

but could ``mask or dampen the effect on risk premiums in

financial markets that we might otherwise expect'', given the

huge US trade deficit and its long-term fiscal challenges.

Mr. Speaker, in the Congressional Record for Tuesday, December 5, 2006 I inserted remarks noting the justifiable honor that Georgetown Law School paid to our former colleague, Father Robert Drinan, by naming a Chair in Human Rights in his honor. Unfortunately, I marred that insertion by incorrectly naming the first holder of the Chair. In that insertion, I said that Professor T. Alexander Aleinikoff was holding the Chair. In fact, he is the Dean of Georgetown University Law Center and he spoke at the ceremony in recognition of the first Chair holder. That recipient of the honor of being the first holder of the Robert F. Drinan Chair is Judge Thomas Buergenthal.

Mr. Speaker, because I think it is a very important step that one of our nation's leading law schools has so honored a man who pioneered in the important field of human rights, and further that the proceedings in which that occurred be fully and accurately portrayed here in this Record, I have submitted for printing elsewhere in the Record a copy that corrects my mistake. I ask separately that these remarks be included so that people who note that there were two versions of this important ceremony printed in the Record will understand why.

I apologize to Judge Buergenthal for not having recognized initially his being designated as the holder of this Chair and I repeat my congratulations to Georgetown University Law Center for honoring a great man, former Congressman Father Robert F. Drinan, and a great cause to which he has donated and continues to donate so much of his talent and time.

Mr. Speaker, on October 23 one of the most accomplished

and distinguished people to serve in this House was the recipient of a wholly deserved high honor from one of the leading law schools in this country--Georgetown Law School. On that day, Georgetown Law School, where Father Drinan has taught since leaving the House 26 years ago, established the Robert F. Drinan, S.J., Chair in Human Rights. The establishment of this Chair--a very significant honor in academia-- recognizes the pioneering work that Father Drinan did as a Member of this House for 10 years, and his continued commitment to that great work. Few people in our history have had as great a dedication to the cause of human rights and have been so consistently effective in advocating for this cause. Unlike many who have tried to make this a partisan issue, Father Drinan was equally fierce in his objection to human rights violators of the left, right and center, and accepted no excuses from those who would deny the basic rights of others.

Mr. Speaker, Father Drinan served here in this body for 10 years as one of its intellectual leaders, having been elected in 1970 as one of the most effective opponents at that time of the war in Vietnam. He also played a very significant role in the impeachment of President Nixon, insisting that appropriate legal standards be applied in that matter. He was also a leader in matters that did not divide the House on either partisan or ideological lines, for example in the field of copyright, where he made contributions during that period that remain important foundations of our law today.

Mr. Speaker, when Father Drinan declined to run for reelection in 1980 at the direction of Pope John Paul II, I was elected to succeed him. While I had been aware previously of the great respect and affection in which he was held by his colleagues, I came to appreciate that even more fully when I took the seat he had so ably filled in 1981.

In the years since leaving this body, Father Drinan has continued to be a leader in the application of religious teachings to important moral issues; in lecturing and teaching about the law; and of course in continuing his great work in the field of human rights. Georgetown Law School deserves recognition, Mr. Speaker, for establishing this Chair in Father Drinan's name. I congratulate Judge Thomas Buergenthal, who will be the first holder of the Chair, and I ask that the discussion of Father Drinan's work included in the program announcing the event be printed here so that people will understand how important his impact has been on the best traditions of our country.

Robert F. Drinan, S.J., Chair in Human Rights Law

Today, Georgetown Law proudly announces the creation of the

Robert F. Drinan, S.J., Chair in Human Rights. Priest,

scholar, lawyer, politician, activist, ethicist, and one of

the nation's leading advocates for international human

rights, Father Drinan has dedicated his life to humanitarian

causes and to improving the legal profession.

A member of the Law Center's faculty since 1981, Father

Drinan teaches courses in international human rights,

constitutional law, civil liberties, legislation, legal

ethics, and professional responsibility. During his tenure at

Georgetown, he has taught over 6,000 students.

Father Drinan earned his B.A. degree in 1942 and his M.A.

degree in 1947 from Boston College and his LL.B. in 1949 and

LL.M. in 1951 from Georgetown University Law Center. He

entered the Society of Jesus while at Boston College, and in

1953, he was ordained a Jesuit priest. From 1956 to 1970, he

served as Dean and Professor of Law at Boston College Law

School. During the ten years between his deanship and joining

the Georgetown Law faculty, he served in the United States

Congress as a Representative from Massachusetts, where he was

a member of various committees and chair of the Subcommittee

on Criminal Justice of the House Judiciary Committee.

Throughout his career, Father Drinan has stood as a leading

voice in the human rights movement. He serves on the boards

of numerous organizations devoted to the furtherance of human

rights, including the International League for Human Rights,

Human Rights First, the Council for a Livable World Education

Fund, Americans for Democratic Action, and the NAACP Legal

Defense and Education Fund. He was a founder of the Lawyers'

Alliance for Arms Control and the National Interreligious

Task Force on Soviet Jewry. Father Drinan has traveled the

globe, both as a member of Congress and as a private citizen,

on human rights missions to Chile, the Philippines, El

Salvador, Guatemala, Nicaragua, Argentina, France, and

Vietnam to document human rights abuses and to work for their

eradication. He is the author of several notable works on

human rights, including The Mobilization of Shame, of which

Elie Wiesel said, ``Anyone interested in human rights will

read Robert Drinan's informative, passionate and challenging

book with deep concern and hope.''

In 2004, Father Drinan joined such American legal

luminaries as Oliver Wendell Holmes, Thurgood Marshall, and

Sandra Day O'Connor when the American Bar Association awarded

him its ABA Medal--the organization's highest honor which

recognizes exceptionally distinguished service to the cause

of American jurisprudence. The award citation notes, ``For

more than half a century, Father Robert F. Drinan has been an

esteemed and beloved leader of the bar and a fearless

advocate for the powerless and oppressed around the world. .

. . Throughout his career, Father Drinan has heeded the call

for human rights and social justice. With unparalleled

passion and dedication, he has strived to improve the plight

of the disadvantage and oppressed, and to advance the rule of

law throughout the world.''

Through the generosity of alumni and friends, Georgetown

now recognizes and honors one of its greatest sons, Robert F.

Drinan, S.J., L'49, L'51, with the creation of the Robert F.

Drinan, S.J., Chair in Human Rights. This meaningful and

lasting tribute will enable the Law Center to attract

teachers, advocates, and scholars who share Father Drinan's

passion and concern for liberty, equality of opportunity, and

human dignity and who will inspire the next generations of

Georgetown Law students to become leaders, protectors, and

defenders of human rights.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Wisconsin, who has done such an extraordinary job in trying to bring fairness and coherence in this process. Unfortunately, he will soon be in the business to do so, although carrying the burden that he has to get out from under.

I first want to join him in saying that I am glad to see we finally recognize the incongruity of pay raises for ourselves and no minimum wage increase. Many of us tried to argue that on logical grounds and on moral grounds. It is interesting to see that the loss of 30 seats apparently succeeded, where morality and logic was less persuasive. But I will take it any way I can get it.

Then I also want to congratulate my colleagues on the other side for their consistency because they end this Congress governing in the same way in which they carried on for 2 years: frankly, incompetently, without respect for democratic procedures, and with a willingness to inflict harm on the most vulnerable members of our society.

Earlier today we voted on packages of things that in a Democratic legislature, for example, Iraq, we would not have had all lumped together. Members who opposed some and supported others would have had a chance to say so. Today we got have one continuing resolution, as the gentleman from Wisconsin said, we have no choice but to vote ``yes'' so that the government does not stop acting.

But let us take a look at what they have done. I have a particular responsibility in my committee for housing. The one housing program that the Republican Party has not undone is the section 8 program. But we have today a resolution that substantially and deliberately provides fewer dollars for the section 8 program than the housing authorities of this country need to meet their existing commitments. This is a budget that goes into, what, January of this current fiscal year. Months will have gone by in this current fiscal year, and you are funding section 8 at significantly less than your president asked for for this fiscal year, significantly less than is needed to meet commitments. And in January housing authorities will be faced with dilemmas. They may be told by HUD that they cannot continue to service what they are now doing.

There is section 8 project-based assistance you put forward in a bill here which is $636 million below what your President asked for just to meet existing commitments. And housing authorities that have jurisdiction over projects which house elderly people and disabled people may be in turmoil and there will be uncertainty. We will probably be able come to their rescue; but why should we have to? Why should we create, Mr. Speaker, you and your colleagues, a situation in which this difficulty exists and we have to come to the rescue? Why such little regard for the poorest people in this country, the most vulnerable? Why are they going to be treated this way, as pawns, so you can avoid having to make difficult decisions, Mr. Speaker?

So I just want to echo what the gentleman from Wisconsin said about the inappropriateness of this. I do want to point out in particular what happens here. And let me say to those Members on the other side who supported this rule and supported this approach, I will predict now, Mr. Speaker, that many of them will be hearing from the housing authorities and from section 8 residents in January complaining of the uncertainty, complaining of the difficulty. You will have no justification in claiming that it wasn't your fault, those of you who voted to send this procedure. So please be ready to explain to people in January why you so callously, Mr. Speaker, disregarded once again the interests of the poorest people in the country.

Mr. Speaker, on November 23, William D. Green, chairman and CEO of Accenture, published a very important article in the Boston Globe on the vital role of two-year colleges. As Mr. Green notes, ``America's system of junior and community colleges has proved to be powerful and very effective in preparing students for success at 4-year colleges and beyond.'' Mr. Green speaks from very relevant experience, both as someone who himself attended Dean College, a 2-year school in Franklin, Massachusetts, and as a leader in American business. He thus understands the importance of community colleges both as one who benefited from a community college education and one who now draws on community college graduates, among others, to staff his important company.

Mr. Speaker, Mr. Green does note one trend that I think we should all be trying to overcome--namely, that ``state support (of community colleges and junior colleges) continues to decline.'' Many people with whom I have discussed the problem of inequality in America have noted that the most important thing to do to help close that gap is to increase educational opportunity. I profess to be somewhat skeptical that this is going to do as much as many argue, but that is no reason not to go forward with increased educational opportunity as much as we can. And this will not happen if we allow ``state support (to) continue to decline'' for these schools. They are an essential avenue for young people from families that are not affluent to begin achieving a college education.

Mr. Speaker, I hope my colleagues will read Mr. Green's words and accept the relevance of what he says to our job of increasing public support for higher education. I am grateful to Mr. Green for sharing his experiences with us on this important point.

[From the Boston Globe, Nov. 23, 2006]

The Vital Role of Community Colleges

(By William D. Green)

Americans finally have an issue on which they can all

agree. If the country hopes to sharpen its competitive edge,

it will take a significant investment in education,

especially math and science. America must also boost their

analytical thinking to address challenges and innovate in

business and society.

Often overlooked and under appreciated, not unlike the

people who attend them, these colleges can help enhance the

Nation's competitiveness, improve the skills of the

workforce, and contribute to a more fulfilling life for

millions of citizens.

The son of a plumber and a school secretary in western

Massachusetts, I had the good fortune to attend Dean College,

a two-year residential college in Franklin. My two years at

Dean focused me, taught me to appreciate the value of

continuing my education, and provided me with the foundation

for building a career in global business.

America's system of junior and community colleges has

proved to be powerful and very effective in preparing

students for success at four-year colleges and beyond. The

potential of these institutions to raise the game of those

who attend and to enhance our Nation's competitiveness is

clear.

The challenge is to keep community colleges and junior

colleges strong at a time when State support continues to

decline. Many who have chosen to attend a junior or community

college have found that the experience can lead to exciting

places. Graduates can be found in Congress and on the

judicial bench. They've flown aboard the space shuttle,

commanded troops, and written for major publications. Some,

like me, run large corporations.

These colleges mirror the communities they serve. They

enable students to continue their education at an affordable

cost, develop careers in a range of fields that is expanding

all the time, and, more frequently nowadays, change careers

to find greater job satisfaction and fulfillment.

In healthcare alone, nearly two-thirds of the industry's

new workers have studied at community colleges. As the number

of baby boomers who are near or at retirement age swells and

the need for healthcare services grows, community colleges

will fill an important gap in the workforce.

In addition to teaching people new skills, junior and

community colleges often help students learn how to learn--to

gain the

kind of solid footing it takes to continue their education.

Research shows that students who transfer from a two-year

institution to a four-year college or university are often

more successful than those who start at a four-year

institution.

As a society we need to applaud the accomplishments of two-

year college graduates and encourage baccalaureate

institutions to accept transfer students who have proved they

can be successful students.

In the long run, junior and community colleges not only

help students gain confidence in their ability to learn, but

they also provide them a foundation for achieving better

jobs.

The potential ripple effect on the economy is obvious. As

the world becomes flatter and we're faced with new global

competition, we must redouble our efforts to ensure that

future generations of Americans enjoy a standard of living

that matches or surpasses our own.

A strong system of junior and community colleges with

stepped-up support--financial or otherwise--from business

leaders, legislators, and educators can go a long way toward

making that goal achievable.

If junior and community colleges win, we all win.

Mr. Speaker, I would ask for a colloquy.

One of the key provisions in this is the requirement that the Regional Fishery Management Councils develop annual catch limits based on the Science and Statistical Committees. This annual catch limit provision has the potential to contribute in important ways to the process of improving science. But it is vital that in analyzing the options and preparing recommendations, the committees consider a wide range of scientific opinion to ensure that the management plans that are based on their work represent the best possible scientific understanding of the current state of the relevant fisheries as well as projections for the future.

Is it the ranking member's, soon to be chairman's, understanding that the Science and Statistical Committees will in fulfilling their role under this legislation consider this broad array of scientific opinion and sources?

I yield to the gentleman from West Virginia.

I thank the gentleman for this and I thank him for also inserting a provision that would make sure that if there is a referendum on quotas that the working fishermen, not just the permit owners, could vote in our region.

But having said that, I want to say that rarely have I seen such a distinguished and thoughtful and intelligent group of my colleagues get something kind of wrong. Let me emphasize it in this way. We heard how there is a special provision here for flounder, where summer flounder are concerned, then there can be flexibility in rebuilding. And I have to ask the question, why is it not the case that what is sauce for the cod is sauce for the flounder? When did the flounder become the exalted species? And if you really, Mr. Speaker, believed in the principles of this legislation, why have you floundered in applying this uniformly? Why did you make this exception for the flounder?

The problem is partly procedure. This bill was developed mostly in the Senate. I appreciate the good work of the chairman of the committee, Mr. Pombo. He and his staff, Mr. Whaley, worked very hard with us to get this kind of flexibility for all species. And Peter Kovar of my staff worked very hard on it and we had frankly, I thought, a pretty good bill coming out of the House. Then the election came, and I understand that it had consequences, and we are winding up with the Senate bill plus an exception for flounder.

I don't object to the exception for flounder. I object to the fact that it is an exception. And I hope I will hear at some point why the flexibility in rebuilding flounder makes sense when no other flexibility for any other species is involved.

I will make a prediction, Mr. Speaker. Let me say in this, I believe that we have here an overreaction and that many of my environmentalist friends have an inability, an unwillingness to recognize that some of the hardest-working, most dedicated, practical environmentalists in this country, the

fishermen, people whose commitment to the environment is whole because that is their livelihood, that their legitimate concerns have not been fully recognized.

I look forward to working in some other areas in health and safety, but I will make a prediction. The rigidity in this bill for everything but flounder is going to cause problems in the future. I will give the sponsors of this bill one kudo. I don't know if you can have a singular of kudos, but I will give you one kudo. The precedent you have set with the flexibility for flounder will in fact be extended to other species. There is no logical reason for that and I believe experience will soon persuade you of that.

Mr. Speaker, one of the most important institutions in the region I represent in this House is the New England Council. No organization does a better job of advocating in a sensible and reasonable way for the economic interests of our area. The Council is composed largely of businesspeople and it is important to note that

they are businesspeople who recognize that we need both a vibrant private sector and an adequately funded and well run public sector working together to make the kind of progress that will improve the quality of lives of all of those we represent.

James T. Brett is a very able chief executive of the Council. Mr. Brett is a former State Representative who has a very impressive understanding of the importance of this private-public interaction. During our recess, he wrote a very interesting article published in the Patriot Ledger of Massachusetts making in very strong terms the case for significant improvements in the way in which the federal government deals with Amtrak. As Mr. Brett notes, ``the regional consequences would be disastrous if Amtrak were unable to operate.''

Mr. Brett cogently addresses one of the important issues that will be facing us when we convene for the 110th Congress, and I ask that his important article be printed here so that Members will have the benefit of this information as we do so.

[From the Patriot Ledger]

Government Support Critical to Amtrak

(By James T. Brett)

Passenger rail is vital to our quality of life and economy

in New England, where rail is an integral part of the

region's multi-modal transportation system and relied on by

so many for daily commuting and business travel.

Yet the future of Amtrak, including the future of the

nation's busiest rail route--the Northeast Corridor--will be

affected in the coming weeks as Congress works to finalize

spending bills before the end of the session.

In July, the full Senate Committee on Appropriations

approved $1.4 billion in funding for Amtrak in the Senate

Transportation-Treasury appropriations bill for the 2007

fiscal year, an increase over the current $1.3 billion

allocation, and well above the President's budget request of

$900 million. In June, the House passed its Transportation-

Treasury bill for the 2007 fiscal year, which funds Amtrak at

$1.14 billion.

It is critical that Congress approve adequate funding for

Amtrak in the upcoming appropriations debate. A 2007 funding

level for Amtrak that, at the very least, meets its 2006 of

$1.3 billion will allow Amtrak to continue to operate with

some infrastructure investment.

Over the last several years, Amtrak has implemented many

reforms, modified service and reduced personnel. More than 14

million people rode Amtrak trains in the Northeast last year

and Amtrak had its third straight year of record ridership.

In addition, Amtrak has continued its efforts to implement a

capital investment plan to bring its infrastructure closer to

a state of good repair.

Despite the progress, much important work still needs to be

done. In this year's fiscal 2007 request, Amtrak cited

Northeast Corridor infrastructure improvements as a critical

priority. These include three major bridges in Connecticut--

the Thames River, the Niantic River and the Connecticut River

Bridges--which date back to the turn of the century and need

to be replaced. Forty Amtrak trains run over these bridges

daily, providing service between New York and Boston.

Other projects, cited by Amtrak, include the replacement of

wood ties on main tracks; the rehabilitation or replacement

of much of the overhead catenary system that supplies power;

the replacement of major portions of the power supply

systems; and the upgrading of interlockings and signal

systems.

Amtrak is a vital transportation link for millions of New

Englanders. At a time when our highways are increasingly

congested, the regional consequences would be disastrous if

Amtrak were unable to operate. Amtrak serves hundreds of

thousands of commuter rail riders and represents thousands of

jobs in the region.

And highway congestion is not a problem that is going away

anytime soon. A new study by the nonprofit think tank the

Reason Foundation reported this summer that traffic delays

will increase 65 percent and the number of congested lane-

miles on urban roads will rise 50 percent over the next 25

years. Even in smaller cities, traffic congestion is expected

to worsen substantially over the next two decades. In our

region, Massachusetts and Connecticut are both ranked in the

top 25 of states that will have the most congested lane miles

by 2030.

A safe, reliable passenger rail system is vital to managing

transportation in the Northeast. The region's ability to

sustain and enhance its economic growth and remain

competitive is linked to an efficient regional transportation

system which includes intercity passenger rail. Government

support is critical to Amtrak's survival. And it is important

that Congress consider these economic factors as they debate

funding for Amtrak.