Floor Statements

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

I am glad to join in urging support for this bill. I want to recognize the good work done by the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Kanjorski) who is the ranking Democrat on this subcommittee, who could not be here with us today, but he spent a lot of time on it, and we have a very useful compromise.

Essentially, we had this situation where we all agreed there was a need to expand the Securities and Exchange Commission. We responded more slowly than it would have liked, but we responded by increasing the budget to the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Essentially, what happened is the legislation passed last year to improve the regulation of the corporate sector authorized increased spending for the SEC. The Congress was slow in living up to that promise, but finally, by early this year, we did it, but then the question was having voted on the additional money, in their case overwhelmingly for staff, how quickly could we hire people because under the normal rules the Federal Government is not expeditious in hiring people, and that is reasonable. There is often not an emergency, and we want to make sure we do it right.

In this case, we wanted to see that hiring was done more quickly. There was an original proposal that came that would have allowed people to be hired very quickly and, once hired, to remain in a somewhat separate status from other employees.

I want to acknowledge the very responsive attitude of the union that represents employees at the SEC, the National Treasury Employees Union. I met and talked with them, as did the gentleman from Pennsylvania whom I have mentioned, and we found them to be, not surprisingly, as they usually are, in a very cooperative mood, and they understood that there were two important issues. One was to enhance the ability of the SEC to hire people quickly so we could put the regulatory structure in place, but also to make sure that employees hired had the protections that any employee is entitled to have against political abuse, against arbitrary mistreatment, et cetera.

So what this legislation embodies is a very sensible compromise. The SEC will be given under this bill the ability to hire quickly. It will be able to hire without some of the normal rules that would slow them down, but once the people are hired, they will then have all the rights and all of the protections that any other employee would have had. It meets the need and sometimes what we do in government is kind of overdo or underdo.

The need here was to hire quickly. There was not the need, we felt, to totally revamp the employee procedures of the SEC. This bill is carefully tailored to do exactly what was needed and no more. It allows the SEC to hire quickly, to take full advantage of the additional funds. My understanding is that over 500 people will be hired under this, accountants and economists and others, but once they are hired, they will not be different than the other employees. We will not have this problem of two classes of employees, some with this set of rights, some with that set of rights. They will be fully integrated into the SEC's workforce.

It is a workforce which does very good work, which has been overstressed because we gave them a lot more to do and did not immediately give them the resources. This is a case where taking the appropriation bill, together with this bill, we will have given the SEC, whose new chairman, I must say Mr. Donaldson seems to be performing admirably, and I think we are all encouraged that he has done so well, and I think that contributes to the enthusiasm with which we support this legislation. There is a great deal of confidence that he will use this authority in a very appropriate way.

What we have done now is to structure things so the SEC will be able to take full advantage of the appropriation. They will be able to hire the people and the investing public and the American economy will get the protection they deserve.

Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, if the gentlewoman has no further requests for time, I congratulate the gentlewoman on being given the right to control nothing, and I yield back the balance of my time.

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

Madam Speaker, this resolution is really record-setting. I have not in all my years here seen so much wind up and so little pitch. This goes on quite eloquently and quite accurately about the importance of homeownership, and it talks about the need for affordable housing. It says, ``Whereas an integral element of a strong community is a sufficient supply of affordable housing.'' It says, on the next page, ``Whereas affordable housing may be provided in traditional and nontraditional forms.'' It talks a very good game about the importance of housing, and particularly affordable housing; and it delivers virtually nothing.

I have been lamenting for some time the opposition of my Republican colleagues to a housing production program in this country. In many parts of this country you will not get affordable housing, as we define that, that is housing for lower-income working people, middle-income people in some areas, unless there is some element of subsidy. We are not talking about the Federal Government simply building the housing. We are talking about a whole range of cooperative programs, many of them private-public cooperations. But it is clearly the case that unless the Federal Government contributes something, you will not get affordable housing.

Now, my Republican colleagues have been strongly against most production programs, but I see now they have come up with one. It is in this resolution, which I am going to vote for, because I am all in favor of good wishes. I think we should all, at all times, be in favor of things that we should be in favor of. And this resolution is clearly in favor of a lot of things that we should be in favor of. It just does not do anything about them. Does not make them worse. And it does have a production program.

I call Members' attention to page 3, paragraph 3. It says, ``During the years of the 108th and 109th sessions of Congress, Members of the Senate and the House should sponsor and construct two homes in the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area.''

Now, the legislative draftsmanship is perhaps not perfect. I will read that as being two homes each. I assume this does not mean that we should all of us build two homes. And I hope not, because there are people here that I would not want to be near them when they had a hammer or a saw or a drill. So I would not want to have to be in a joint effort to build some of these homes.

So we are talking about two homes each for 4 years. Now, there are 535 Members of Congress. Two homes apiece would be 1,070 homes a year for 4 years. So we now have the affordable housing program of the Republican Party for production: 4,280 homes over the next 4 years in the metropolitan Washington area, D.C. and Fairfax County, although they probably would not get that many, Alexandria, Arlington, parts of Montgomery and maybe more in Prince George's.

Now, 4,280 houses is better than nothing, although I have to say I am willing to do my part; and I have to say this, we are not often sufficiently modest around here, and each of us is supposed to build two houses, but, Madam Speaker, I would not want to live in a house I built. There are some things I think I am good at, some things I am not so good at. The notion of all of us building houses is an interesting one.

Actually, this is motivated both by a desire to do affordable housing, but it also carries out the Republican approach to unions. Because their entire production program would be built by overwhelmingly nonunion labor. There are a couple of Members here who are members of unions, although it is rarely the building trades. My colleague from Boston, the gentleman from Massachusetts, was an iron worker; but he can only do so much. And I do not know how many of the houses would be made out of iron or structural steel or whatever anyway.

So here they have a housing production program, 4,280 houses for the entirety of America, built almost exclusively by nonunion labor, without a penny of Federal Government contribution. Unless we built them during work hours. I suppose if we built them during working hours, when we were getting paid, it would be some Federal contribution. I assume the position is that we do not.

Now, I guess I am a little ambivalent about the notion of unleashing every Member of the House and the Senate to build two houses. I know you cannot comment on Senators, I understand that, Madam Speaker; but I think you can comment on past Senators, and I guess I can say that I am pleased Strom Thurmond will no longer be covered by this. It is a lucky thing we did not pass this last year, because Strom Thurmond would have been charged with building two houses somewhere, and I would want to live in those even less than the ones I would build.

But the problem is not so much with what it says, but with what it does not say. We have not for some time had a program in this country to have Federal resources go for housing production. And in the absence of a housing production program, families will have a hard time getting affordable housing. We have some programs that help. We have the programs that help build housing for the elderly and for the disabled. We have the low-income tax credit, which does a good job; but it is limited. We have the section 8 voucher program which works well in a lot of areas, but the section 8 program does not contribute to production, particularly when we have rulings now that say you can only use a voucher 1 year at a time. No one can build a house on a year-by- year commitment.

So I am all in favor of the goals of this resolution. I just wish it did something other than asking this workforce to go out and build a couple of houses a year to carry it out. We have a terrible crisis in this country with regard to affordable housing. And let me just say, Madam Speaker, that one of the arguments we have when some of us talk about the need for the Federal Government to participate in doing things that are important for the quality of our lives, we are told we should not worry about it, the private economy will take care of it.

The private economy does a great deal. The private economy supplies many of our needs, and a private sector is something we should all work for. But there are some things it will not do. And with the very prosperity of the 1990s, which was so important in helping people achieve so many goals, for many people it made the housing situation worse. Because prosperity is obviously not uniformly distributed. Under the policies now in power, it is even less uniformly distributed than ever, as a conscious choice. But even at its best, prosperity will be uneven.

And many people in this country, in the greater Boston area, in the area around San Francisco, in Chicago, in many of our great metropolitan areas people whose incomes were somewhat fixed, many of them public employees, teachers, firefighters, police officers, and social workers, and public works people, people on relatively fixed incomes found themselves worse off in the housing market because prosperity drove up the value of many properties, and some people benefited enormously, and some were left behind.

We are told, well, a rising tide will lift all boats. But if you are too poor to afford a boat, the rising tide will go over your head and drown you. And that happened to many people. The very prosperity of the 1990s that were so welcome nationally exacerbated the housing crisis.

That does not mean the government building all the housing is the answer. It does mean that a sensible, well-funded production program, where the government contributes along with the private sector an element of subsidy so that new housing can be built in many parts of the country, is the only way this resolution will be more than just empty rhetoric.

So at this point we only have this resolution. But we will later in the year have a chance to address this, I hope. I hope the committee which brought this out, the Committee on Financial Services, which has jurisdiction over housing, will be allowed by the leadership of this House to formulate a sensible production program and bring it forward. And if we do, we may be able to rescue this resolution from the charge of being just empty rhetoric.

Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, I yield myself 30 seconds.

I notice on page 4 it says each Congress Building America house should be constructed primarily by Members of the Senate and House, their families and staff. Now, presumably, if we do this, it is voluntarily. But if we pass a bill like this and our staffs do it, it might not be voluntary. We might need an interpretation from you, Madam Speaker, under the bill you have been sponsoring. If our staffs show up to build housing and they have to work overtime, would we pay them overtime or would they get comp time?

So I think we will have to have further interpretation when our staffs report for home building, which some of them probably did not sign up for.

Madam Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Vermont (Mr. Sanders), a very active leader in the fight for affordable housing in our committee.

Madam Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Davis).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Waters) who is the ranking member of the Subcommittee on Housing and Community Opportunity of the Committee on Financial Services, and a great leader in this field.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Watt).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2\1/2\ minutes to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Lee).

Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?

I just want to make sure I understand. The gentleman is proposing that we pass a Federal statute that would say that no local zoning regulation could go into effect?

If the gentleman will yield further, I think the gentleman, however, is being inconsistent. I have been critical of the use of local zoning in many cases to block housing proposals, but I do want to be clear. These are local and State laws. The Endangered Species Act is Federal. But most of what the gentleman talked about are local and State laws, and I am asking the gentleman, is he proposing that at the Federal level we pass statutes that regulate and restrict and limit what form local zoning can take, saying that it has to have a cost-benefit analysis, et cetera? I might be interested in joining that, if that is what the gentleman is advocating.

Mr. Speaker, point of order. This is not a parliamentary inquiry.

Mr. Speaker, I apologize to the gentleman from California. I know he is very thick-skinned, so he did not mind. But he had been speaking under the guise of a parliamentary inquiry, and he was not making a parliamentary inquiry, although the parliamentary inquiry made was about a rule which has been in effect ever since he got here, and I was surprised he had forgotten it. But he did not say he was going to use his time. I did want to clarify. Apparently he decided to use his time, but he decided to use his time to tell us he did not plan to use his time.

I think it is somewhat unfortunate that, having shut off debate, having refused to an allow an amendment, he is suggesting that it is somehow improper for Members on our side to talk about the substance. He has said that he will accept the instruction, having made it clear with his usual consideration for other opinions that having accepted it in the vote, he plans to disregard it in the conference.

So we continue to think it is important to point out the difference between what we want to do, provide real help to poor children, and what he plans to do.

Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?

Perhaps if the White House has a shortage of space, it might help if they invite the Members without staff and next week they invite the staff without the Members, and we might function better.

Mr. Speaker, I am the ranking minority member on the committee of jurisdiction, and I am pleased that we forestalled a suspension proposal here and that we do have a chance to debate some of the amendments. I will talk about that bill in due time.

Parliamentary Inquiry

I did want to note today, though, and I guess I may need the Parliamentarian, Mr. Speaker. I know under our rules it is forbidden to speak ill of the Senate and from time to time people get exasperated and they speak ill of the Senate and they are duly chided.

But the question I have, Mr. Speaker, is, is it permissible to speak well of the Senate? Is it within the rules to lavish on the Senate the praise they deserve for passing the child tax credit bill?

In any way. Well, I regret my inability to give credit where credit is due. I was hoping that an example recently given would be followed in this side of the Capitol; but I will abide by the rules, though as foolish as I think this particular rule is, and not comment on the Senate.

I will, though, have to say that the refusal of the Republican leadership in the House to allow the House to vote on a proposal that would extend to hard-working, low-income people financial relief after all of the financial relief we have given to people in the upper brackets is truly distressing.

I know there has been an effort on the House floor to portray our interest in providing a tax credit to people, and let us be clear, we are talking about here people who work. They work very hard. They work at jobs that are not very pleasant, and that, by definition, are not well paid. Many of them have families.

It is true that because they work hard at jobs that this society has devalued in many cases they do not pay much or any income tax. They do, however, pay a significant percentage of their income in taxes. They pay the Social Security tax and the tax on Medicare. They pay the withholding tax.

For many of them because there are no exemptions from that, there are no deductions, they pay the full thing no matter how many children they have, no matter how many other expenses they have. For some of those people this is a larger percentage of their income paid in tax than is paid by many wealthier people. That reduction will be further.

What this House says is, no, they get no relief out of this bill comparable to what others get. It is unworthy of this House to say that to these hardworking people struggling to provide for their children when the Republicans have said, in the tax bill, this looks like $350 billion, but we are going to convert it into hundreds of billions more.

A bill is going to be introduced that would cost a total of $10 billion, or would expend $10 billion; but it would be neutral revenue- wise to help these low-income people. We are told we cannot do that.

When there was a parliamentary situation that the President confronted, and he was told he could only get $350 billion in tax relief over the next 10 years, he said that he did not think people should be for such a little bitty piece of tax relief. So $350 billion is a little bitty. We are asking for a very small percentage of that little bitty for the poorest, hardest-working people in this country.

The Republican leadership, I can understand in the core Republican philosophy that they would say no to these people, but to refuse to allow the House of Representatives to vote on it seems to me unpardonable. We are just asking, okay, let it come to the floor. Let us have a debate. Are they so afraid that their resistance to helping these low-income people is so out of sync with the American people that they will not let it come forward?

I hope we will see that bill on the floor fairly soon.

Mr. Chairman, where are the libertarians when we need them? What we have before us is the Inconsistency Act of 2003. Rarely has a bill come forward which is in conflict with as many principles as Members of this House have professed. In the first place, we have the question as to whether or not we should substitute the government's opinion for individuals' choices.

Now, there are ills in this world against which people should be protected. There are economic injustices, there are environmental problems, there are criminal elements who would prey on people. I spend all of my energy trying to protect people against things done by others, whether forces of nature or individuals, that would harm them. I envy my colleagues who have more energy than I. I do not have enough left to protect people against themselves. This is an example of our deciding that we cannot trust adults to decide what to do with their own money.

Now, if we were talking about someone who was being forced to gamble at gunpoint, I am with you. If there are people who are being coerced into putting down a bet, let us protect them. But if an individual has gone out and earned his or her money and decides he or she wants to gamble, why in the world is it anybody in this building's business?

So we, first of all, have this inconsistency with the principle of let us keep big government off our backs. I do not myself gamble. I do not like to see my money go when I do not have any control over it, and so I do not gamble. And other people who are opposed to gambling, I do not always hold myself out as an example, but I will in this case. Be like me: do not gamble. But if other people want to put a bet down, mind your own business.

Now, there are people for whom this is enjoyable. I do not understand why we should cast aspersions on them. And it is true, some people will abuse it. There are a minority of people who will abuse this. But the notion that we prevent adults from making their own choices with their own money, to do things which have no harmful effect on anyone else, because a minority of people will abuse them is, of course, a very dangerous principle. There are people who drink too much. There are people who go to too many movies. There are people who do a lot of things in excess that most of us do in moderation. Ban the excess, if you want to; deal with the consequences of the excess. This is a violation, though, what we are doing now, of the fundamental principle: leave people alone.

There is another principle that I have heard: the sanctity of the Internet. We are told that we should not interfere with the Internet. Indeed, this House has refused to cooperate with State governments; now, many of them are in terrible fiscal crises, cutting back on health care, laying off public safety officials, but we will not cooperate with them in collecting sales taxes from people who buy things over the Internet in competition with local communities, and they lose tax revenue. But we say, oh, no, we cannot touch the Internet, unless it is being used for something people here do not like. That is basically what is involved here.

We have, and there is an interesting conjunction here of liberals and conservatives. Conservatives do not like it, some of them because I read from some of the very conservative groups that it is immoral to gamble. I am often baffled by their morality, and I do not understand why it is immoral to gamble. I am struck by so many of my liberal friends who do not want people to gamble. Indeed, gambling is, to many liberals, what sex-oriented literature is to conservatives. They do not like it, so they do not want anyone else to do it. There are people who do not like gambling; then do not gamble. But why use the law to prevent other people from doing it?

Now, I know they say, well, but this is not just making it illegal; this is doing this, that, and the other. But let us cut right down to it. This is being put forward by people who do not like gambling and want to make it harder to gamble, and their principle of keeping government out of private choices, forget about it; their principle of being able to use the Internet without interference, forget about that; and their respect for financial institutions, forget about that.

Now, they say children will abuse it. I understand that. That is a serious effort. I am prepared to cooperate in efforts to try to protect children, although we should know that the major protection of children ought to be their own parents. This is protecting children, forgetting about any parental role; but that is another principle that is a problem. You cannot, in my judgment, sensibly, in a society like ours, make it illegal for adults to do things because there is a possibility that some young people will do them when they should not. Let us work on ways to prevent children from doing this sort of thing.

Gambling is a perfectly legitimate human activity. There are people who enjoy it. There are people who find that it engages them. I do not think they ought to be anesthetized on the floor of the House, but being anesthetized, I guess a lot of people do not pay a lot of attention to what we say. No real harm there. But when you take the law of the United States and you now put further criminal penalties here and further restrict people, I think we are making a very grave error.

So I hope Members who have talked about States' rights, who have talked about individual liberty being protected from an overreaching government, who have talked about not stifling the Internet and its creativity, will think about one of those things when you come to vote on this bill and vote it down.

I thank the gentlewoman for managing this time and yielding this time to me. I am the senior minority member, but since the majority of members of my committee, in a temporary lapse from their usual good judgment, supported this bill; I did not think it was appropriate for me to be the manager.

But I do hope that individual freedom, a distrust of overreaching government, a respect for the rights of State and local jurisdictions, and a respect for the Internet will count for something when we vote.

Mr. Speaker, the majority party spokesman for the Committee on Rules was somewhat inaccurate in describing our position. The effort that we are engaged in to provide some financial relief to some of the poorest and hardest-working people in this country and their children would not cost the government revenues anymore. It would be balanced.

We find, unlike him, a number of unfairnesses in the Tax Code; and I was struck by, in his conversation, the complete absence of any defense of the decision to deny this benefit to these people.

I came down here today as the ranking member of the Committee on Financial Services to talk about check truncation, but I would agree with my colleagues that fairness truncation is a far more important issue; and that is what we are talking about.

The gentleman who spoke said this is a Republican Party and he is proud of it. I think there is too good of appreciation in the country today of the real differences that exist between the parties. Partisanship is not always a bad thing. There is a legitimate aspect in a democratic society to recognizing differences. The gentleman from Texas is proud that they passed a tax bill that excluded the poorest working people in America.

He said he was proud of it, and I think we are proud on our side to be appalled by it. We are proud on our side to say that we can, without further draining our ability to pay for important public needs, provide help to these lower-income people; and as I said, it is a matter of fairness truncation.

By the way, one of the misarguments that is used to defend stiffing the poorest people in this country when the wealthiest are doing very well is, well, they do not pay taxes. Do people in this Chamber really not notice something called the Social Security payroll tax? In fact, anybody who works pays Social Security payroll taxes. Deductions are made, and in fact, the people who are making $25,000, $30,000, $20,000, they are paying a very large percentage of their income in those taxes.

I hope that we will soon do the noncontroversial bill that allows banks to truncate checks, and I hope we will then undo the Republican decision to truncate fairness and equity even further than it is and use some of the resources that we were able to use for a very large overall tax cut and spend a very few dollars on the poorest people in this country, including children.

Mr. Speaker, I congratulate the gentleman from Texas in the discretion he showed in continuing to avoid defending this outrageous decision to stiff the poor people.

As to the check truncation bill, I appreciate his discussion of the work. As the ranking member, let me say I appreciate we have an open rule here. We do have an inverse relationship here. Well, we have two.

One, the poorer a person is, the less fairly they are going to be treated in the tax bill. Secondly, the less important the legislation, the more open-handed the Committee on Rules will be in letting us discuss it.

I am glad that we are bringing this bill forward. I was the ranking member when it was put forward, but I have to tell my colleagues I am glad that it is going to pass; but it probably will not make it into my next biography. I do not expect being remembered as the coauthor of the check truncation bill will be part of my legacy. So I thank the gentleman for his concern.

The reason we are not debating it is very simple. There is nothing left to say. The banks are going to use the different kinds of paper. People will be able to get a record of their checks. That is the end of it.

I understand why the gentleman would rather talk about something else than being unfair to poor people. Unfortunately, there is not enough substance here.

Mr. Speaker, I have a parliamentary inquiry.

Mr. Speaker, I did not hear the gentleman from California say anything personally offensive to the Vice President. I wonder when we are being told that something was personally offensive to the Vice President, what would that be? He may be more thick-skinned than you give him credit for, Mr. Speaker.

So the ruling is or the indication is that any suggestion that the Vice President might be interested in making money would be personally offensive?

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

Mr. Chairman, I think this is a very good idea. It is efficient. We make sure consumers are fully protected. I agree with just about everything everybody else is going to say today.

Mr. Chairman, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Weiner).

Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

The gentleman is right, we are trying in everything we have done, and I think we have accomplished that in our committee so far. The chairman has been very cooperative in promoting efficiency while protecting consumers. This bill, as I said, does do that with regard to your ability to get the check if you actually need it.

The gentleman raises a point that had not previously occurred to me that I think is a good one. I think it ought to be addressed. I would be obviously, as I have told him, very reluctant to do it now without a chance to examine it and have some hearings.

We do have pending in the process a more comprehensive bill called the Regulatory Relief Bill into which I believe this would fit. The bill passed our committee. It is being sequentially referred to the Committee on the Judiciary.

There are some important issues there, particularly including the industrial loan corporations, where we have given assurances that we are going to try and work some compromises out. So I can guarantee to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Weiner), who has raised this very important issue, that further work remains to be done on regulatory relief. I have spoken to the chairman of both the full committee and the subcommittee, and we agree that this is an issue worthy of consideration.

I would say this, whether or not we would all ultimately agree on a solution cannot be predicted. Certainly the gentleman will, I believe, have an opportunity if not to offer it today to offer it later, and I hope then to be able to offer it with a good deal more agreement.

Mr. Chairman, I ask unanimous consent that the gentleman from Tennessee (Mr. Ford) be allowed to manage the remainder of our time on this bill.

Mr. Speaker, we hear too rarely of our public policy successes, because of a natural tendency for people to focus on areas where our efforts have fallen short of what we sought to achieve.

It is important to examine the policies which have not worked well, so that we can change them. But when organizations, the media, and others pay attention only to failure, the public gets a distorted overall picture, and people become unduly pessimistic about our ability to achieve important goals through public policy.

One area in which the private and public sectors can work together to produce a very favorable current situation is that of the scallop fishery. This does not mean that no errors were made in the course of this work, and to some extent we have seen here a process of trial and error. One of the errors we had previously made was to rely exclusively on science conducted by the regulators, and in recent years, independent scientific assessment of the fishery has proven to be an extremely useful tool.

Today, the scallop fishery is a very successful one. The catch is high, the stock has been replenished, the economy of the Greater New Bedford area--and other scallop fisheries--benefits, and, perhaps most importantly, consumers are able to receive a steady supply of a food that is both good and good for them. Sadly, this success seems, in some cases, to have angered some conservationists when it should, instead, have given them a sense of confidence about our ability to make public policy decisions. As the Representative of the City of New Bedford, the Town of Fairhaven, and other communities in which scallop fishing is important, I have had the disappointing experience of seeing some--by no means all--environmental organizations take unreasonable positions, and maintain them even in the face of contradictory experience.

I hope, Mr. Speaker, that when we reauthorize the Sustainable Fisheries Act, we build on the experience that we have gained in the scallop fishery, as well as in other fisheries, and make changes in the law that will enhance our ability to achieve the public policy successes that we have seen in the regulation of scalloping.

In a very comprehensive and thoughtful article, our former colleague, Gerry Studds, and Dr. Trevor Kenchington, a marine biologist, present the story of the success in the scallop fishery--as the sub-headline of their article in the May 25 issue of the New Bedford Standard Times correctly notes, ``cooperation between managers and fishermen has rebuilt stocks.''

Those who served with Gerry Studds during his twenty four years in the House, including his service as Chair of the Committee on Merchant Marine and Fisheries before its abolition, will not be surprised to read his cogent and balanced presentation. As a leading voice in this House on the question of fishing, Mr. Studds had a major role in bringing about many of the achievements chronicled in this article, and I am proud as his successor in representing the major scallop fishery in American to have been able to carry on his work.

Because this is a very important issue that we will, I hope, be addressing in legislation this year, I ask that the very informative article ``Success With Scallops'' offered by Mr. Studds and Dr. Kenchington and carried in the New Bedford Standard Times, be reprinted here.

Success With Scallops

cooperation between managers and fishermen has rebuilt stocks

(By Trevor J. Kenchington and Gerry E. Studds)

If you thought all living marine resources were either

severely depleted or on the verge of extinction, due to a

combination of ineffective management and the greed and

shortsightedness of fishermen, you could hardly be blamed.

After all, that is the message conveyed to you day after day

in the media--and in the fund-raising solicitations of many

environmental groups.

You might be more than a little surprised, therefore, to

learn that an immensely valuable component of commercial

fishing in New England and the Mid-Atlantic--the Atlantic sea

scallop fishery--presents a shining example of successful

management and an unprecedented instance of cooperation

between fishermen and managers.

``The scallop resource on Georges Bank and in the Mid-

Atlantic region has not only increased dramatically in recent

years, but is at record high levels and considered fully

rebuilt,'' said the Executive Director of the New England

Fishery Management Council last fall. (Heading Toward

Recovery: Rebuilding New England's Fisheries, Fall 2002)

Under these circumstances, you might be even more surprised

to learn that several environmental organizations and their

allies have gone to court again and again to block these

management efforts. To date, their legal challenges have been

uniformly unsuccessful. But they have succeeded in tying

managers and fishermen in expensive, litigious knots.

Why is it that these groups, among them the Conservation

Law Foundation and Oceans, have painted a target on the backs

of the scallop fishermen when pinning a medal on their chests

for innovative, proactive citizenship might seem more

appropriate?

Let's take a closer look, first at the scallops themselves

and their importance to the country and to local communities,

then at the recent history of scallop management.

Scallops feed on the lowest level in the marine ecosystem--

microscopic floating plants. Much as cattle turn grass into

beef, scallops turn natural plant energy into meat. Scallop

meat is, moreover, nutritious, low fat and a prized delicacy

when fresh.

Left to themselves, however, scallops are not an efficient

pathway for the plants to feed the rest of the ecosystem.

Scallops, with their strong shells, resist most predators.

Enter humans. With effective management of the U.S. Atlantic

scallop fishery, annual production of some 40 million

pounds of high-quality scallop meat can be landed and

enjoyed by consumers, replacing high-priced imports with

fresh product. Importantly, because scallops are

``shucked'' (opened) at sea with only their meats brought

ashore, their viscera are discarded overboard and

thereupon become a food source for predatory fish such as

cod.

The scallop industry is very important to the social fabric

of shoreside communities from Maine to North Carolina. The

bulk of the catch is harvested by approximately 200 full-time

scallop vessels, while another 100 or so fish for scallops to

a lesser extent. Some 2,000 people are directly employed in

the harvesting. In the process of supplying this product to

consumers, the scallop fishery can earn between $150 million

and $200 million per year, valued at the point of landing.

Even more value is added and more jobs supported in

processing, distribution and sales.

Income from scalloping contributes to the economies and way

of life of many coastal communities in a half-dozen states.

That is an important contribution for some ports like

Stonington, Conn.; Cape May, N.J.; and Hampton Roads, Va.

But, scalloping is vital to New Bedford, where the majority

of Atlantic scallops are landed. In fact, the revitalization

of the scallop fishery has propelled New Bedford into its

current position as the No. 1 fishing port in the United

States, measured by dollar value of product landed.

But it is not foreordained that the scallop industry should

have its current success. In the past, scallop fishermen,

like those in so many other U.S. fisheries, compensated for a

declining resource by fishing harder (and more dangerously)

struggling to maintain their income but driving the scallops

down further.

1994 rules

In 1994, all that began to change when strict rules were

implemented limiting the number of participants in the

fishery and, more importantly, the number of days that

scallop vessels could fish in a given year. Further cuts

followed, particularly in 1998. Full-time scallop vessels are

now limited to 120 days at sea each year compared to the 250

or more that many worked before restrictions began. They are

also now limited to seven men, which severely limits their

catching power, compared to the 13 men commonly carried in

earlier years. In addition, large portions of the most

productive scallop grounds in the world (on Georges Bank, off

Massachusetts) were closed in order to assist federal efforts

to rebuild stocks of groundfish (cod, flounder, and haddock).

About 80 percent of the Georges Bank scallops (roughly half

of the entire Atlantic scallop resource) is currently off-

limits to fishing.

Under these strict management measures, the weight of

scallops alive in the ocean has increased almost eight-fold

since its low point in 1993. It is now safely above target

levels set by federal managers for rebuilding the stock

pursuant to the federal Sustainable Fisheries Act. For

scallops, a formal 10-year rebuilding plan was initiated in

1999. By 2001--just three years--scallop stocks had rebuilt

to their target level.

related reasons

They rebuilt so quickly for a series of inter-related

reasons.

First, scallop stocks can be, and were, very productive.

Second, significant conservation measures were imposed in

time to capitalize on a large, natural up-tick in scallop

productivity. Third, the scallop fleet responded to

challenges imposed by the Sustainable Fisheries Act by

organizing itself to partner with the federal government to

achieve conservation goals. Almost 200 full-time participants

in the Atlantic scallop fishery have come together under the

banner of the Fisheries Survival Fund (FSF), which is

headquartered in Fairhaven, Massachusetts, just outside New

Bedford.

FSF participants have worked with the federal government to

develop innovative approaches to improve scallop yield,

reduce the (already very limited) bycatch of other fish

species by scallop dredges and reduce the potential for

interactions between scallop dredges and the ocean bottom

habitat. FSF members have also worked in partnership with

major East Coast universities, such as the University of

Massachusetts School for Marine Sciences and Technology and

the Virginia Institute of Marine Sciences at the College of

William & Mary, using both scallop gear and high-resolution

video cameras to survey scallop stocks, to learn about the

ocean bottom in scallop areas and to develop gear that can

reduce the potential for fish bycatches and the small

potential for interaction of scallop dredges with endangered

sea turtles.

Pilot projects, involving the industry, academia and the

federal government, were undertaken in 1999 and 2000 to

reopen portions of the Georges Bank groundfish closed areas

to environmentally responsible scallop fishing. Areas have

been closed in the Mid-Atlantic to allow concentration of

small scallops detected in those regions to grow and then to

spread the catches of these large concentrations of

harvestable scallops over a period of years, rather than have

them be taken in one ``gold-rush'' event.

rotating closures

The FSF has also been working since 1999 to devise a

systematic approach to rotational management of scallop

beds--an effort that promises important habitat benefits and

further reductions in the already small bycatches.

Few, if any, fishery participants nationwide have invested

more time, effort and material resources in developing

proactive management approaches. Significantly, moreover,

these cooperative management efforts have repeatedly (and,

sad to say, expensively) stood the test of determined court

challenges.

This is fisheries management for the 21st century. If

anything became clear in the 20th century, it was the top-

down management of fisheries, in an atmosphere of conflict

between managers and the managed, has failed worldwide and

would not have worked for the Atlantic scallop fishery.

It is, finally, important to recognize that the scallop

fishery is an environmentally clean fishery. Scalloping

involves very little bycatch. There are only negligible

catches of cod, haddock and most other species of fish.

Bycatches of flounder, monkfish and skate are a bit higher

but still relatively small.

Scalloping alone would pose no threat to those populations;

however, there can be issues when a resource has been

depleted by directed fishing (that is, not by scalloping) or

by environmental factors. The potential for scalloper bycatch

is something that needs to be considered in developing

rebuilding measures in these cases. The scallop industry is

working with managers to identify and resolve these specific

issues when they arise.

designed to work

Then there is the issue of the scallop dredge itself.

Simply put, harvesting scallops from deep offshore waters

requires towed gear. Thus, dredges are necessarily used for

the bulk of the scallop fishery. Importantly, however, while

the dredge is a large and heavy device when sitting on land

or aboard a boat, when towed under the water, hydrodynamic

forces literally lift it off the bottom. In fact, the New

Bedford style scallop dredge used in the Atlantic has been

called an ``airplane'' dredge and actually requires

``depressor plates'' (which function as upside-down airplane

wings) to maintain contact with the bottom--contact that

involves chains and skids skimming across the bottom, rather

than digging into it. Contrary to the impressions created by

some, dredges do not plow the bottom for scallops; rather,

water flow behind the depressor plates causes scallops to be

sucked off the bottom and whirled into the bag portion of the

dredge.

Moreover, scallopers tend to avoid areas with even

occasional boulders unless they are forced there by lack of

resource elsewhere or by closures of productive scalloping

areas. Their gear is not efficient in those areas while

damage to expensive dredges is both common and dangerous. It

is those rocky bottom areas that represent the main focus of

efforts to protect essential groundfish habitat from the

adverse effects of fishing gear. Scallops and scalloping on

the other hand are most productive where the seabed is sand

or fine gravel.

Managers are currently working, as they should be, towards

focusing scallop fishing efforts on large concentrations of

large scallops, including those in closed areas of Georges

Bank. Moreover, focusing scallop effort on areas where

scallops are abundant also reduces the potential for any

impact of the scallop dredge on the ocean bottom and the

potential for bycatch of other species. Scallopers fishing in

areas of high abundance spend less time fishing for scallops

and more time processing them. This reality is at the heart

of scallop rotation management, as championed by the

industry. Successful rotation management, therefore, requires

access to areas of scallop abundance.

So, to return to where we began, why is it that the

fisherman who regularly risks his life in the most dangerous

of all occupations to wrest a living from the sea and put

food on our table who has not only played by the rules but

has taken the initiative (at considerable expense to himself)

to help develop an innovative, conservation-positive

management system that is working and working well--why is it

that, in addition to the forces of nature and the processes

of regulatory bureaucracy, he must now contend with a

sustained legal assault from groups that seek to portray him

as the most avaricious and irresponsible of men?

Might it be that the scallop industry has ``stepped on the

message'' of some whose world view has no place for them? Are

there those whose agenda is somehow threatened by proof that

a fishery can be both successful and sustainable? These are

questions that thoughtful and responsible people would do

well to ponder.

Mr. Speaker, before we went on recess, I came to the floor of the House to express my deep dismay at the disregard for fundamental democratic principles shown by Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz. In an interview he gave on May 2 aimed for broadcast in Turkey, Secretary Wolfowitz repeatedly criticized the Turkish military for not having intervened in parliamentary deliberations with sufficient strength when the question of Turkish participation in the war in Iraq came up. I believed then and now that this appalling call on the Turkish military to violate fundamental democratic norms was particularly disturbing because there are few things more important to the stability of the world than the effort now going on in Turkey to show that people who are religious Muslims can preside over a fully democratic regime. While many of us would like to hope that this could be taken for granted, the recent history of the Middle East argues to the contrary and that is why supporting the Turkish government in its effort to implement democracy is so important.

Secretary Wolfowitz in his interview criticized the Turkish military for not speaking out to influence the Parliament, and when the interviewer pointed out to him that the Turkish military had in fact done that, he repeated his criticism by saying that they had not done it with enough strength. Telling a military in a democratic government that it should more strongly be expressing its views to elected officials demonstrates a misunderstanding of democracy in general, and a particular insensitivity to the implications of such statements in a country--Turkey--where there had been a history of military coup that many are trying to overcome.

Subsequent to my comments, I learned of a statement made by General Hilmi Ozkok, Chief of the Turkish General Staff, in which he responded to those who had been critical of the military. While his comments pre- date the interview given by Mr. Wolfowitz, this reads as if he were in part responding to the Deputy Secretary, and in fact he may have been doing so because it would not surprise me if Mr. Wolfowitz had made these criticisms directly to the Turkish military before going public with them.

The contrast between the interview with Deputy Secretary Wolfowitz-- the relevant portions of which I am going to re-print here--and the statement by General Ozkok is striking, and I am sad to see the head of the Turkish General Staff showing a far better understanding of the role the military should play in a democracy than the Deputy Secretary of Defense of the United States. As General Ozkok points out, ``the military did not think it would be beneficial to share its views on such a critical issue with the press and public. It expressed all its views clearly and openly, however, at the state summit, the National Security Council, and in all of the meetings; which were chaired by our Prime Minister, government members and pertinent organizations and institutions.''

General Ozkok goes on to say ``the Iraqi issue is a vital and multifaceted issue. The military is concerned with the security dimension of this issue and expresses its views and puts forward suggestions on this aspect only. As all of you will appreciate, a decision on such an issue calls for political, economic, social and judiciary dimensions as well. We as the military do not think we know best. Consequently we could have paved the path to misinterpretations if we had issued statements to the public on the security aspects only.''

Most crucially, referring to the MGK--the National Security Council of Turkey which consists of five military and nine civilian members-- General Ozkok says ``as you know, the MGK issues recommendations to the government according to the Constitution, not to the TBMM (the Parliament) . . . if the MGK had issued a recommendation at the time the motion was being taken up at the TBMM (the Parliament) and before a decision was made, it would have meant putting the pressure on the TBMM to pass the motion. This would not have been democratic and not in line with the Constitution.''

Mr. Speaker, I wish Paul Wolfowitz understood this fundamental aspect of democracy as well as the head of the Turkish General Staff. I ask that the sadly contrasting views of the role of the military in a democracy expressed by Deputy Secretary Wolfowitz and General Ozkok be printed here.

CNN Turk. Which traditional alliance are you talking about?

Wolfowitz. Well I think you know which ones I mean but I

think particularly the military. I think for whatever reason

they did not play the strong leadership role on that issue

that we would have expected. But I think the bigger

disappointment has to do with the general failure of the

Turkish public reflected also in the government, about what

the stakes were in Iraq and that here you have a neighbor

with an overwhelmingly Muslim population where the people

were suffering under one of the worst dictators in the world.

And one would have thought that Muslim solidarity would have

led people to say lets help the Americans liberate these

people and that isn't what happened.

Okay, that's past. We are now in the present and future.

The present and future is there's a spectacular opportunity

in Iraq to help these newly liberated people achieve their

real potential and I think that's what we need to work on

together, Turkey and United States and I think what Turkey

needs to do is look into its democratic soul and say, yes we

believe in democracy, we believe in democracy for Muslims and

Arabs. There's an opportunity now, whatever happened in the

last few months, there's an opportunity now to work with the

Americans to build that in Iraq. Let's seize that opportunity

and do everything we can as Turks to support it.

CNN Turk. But if you make a prognosis of what went wrong

earlier, since you mentioned for example the military the

traditional institution which had strong connections to the

United States did not play a leadership role, so for the

future to repair the relationship and bring it back to its

original level that means that you have to need a leadership

role to be played by those who haven't played it. What kind

of a role the military might have because after all the

military is not working in Turkey's parliament political

parties [inaudible]? And they have been criticized by getting

involved in politics.

Wolfowitz. I'm not suggesting you get involved in politics

at all. I mean, I think, all I'm saying is that when you had

an issue of Turkey's national interest and national strategy

I think it's perfectly appropriate, especially in your

system, for the military to say it was in Turkey's interest

to support the United States in that effort.

CNN Turk. Didn't they say that?

Wolfowitz. I don't know. My impression is they didn't say

it with the kind of strength that would have made a

difference. But look lets not dwell too much on the past.

Mr. Speaker, sometimes when a President flies somewhere, part of his trip is charged to his party's political committee because the trip is partly governmental and partly political.

The expenses for running the House for the next hour ought to be charged to the Republican Congressional Campaign Committee, because the purpose of this rule and of other rules we have seen so far is incumbent protection for the Republican Party.

What they have done is to shut down democracy within the House. It is democratic in the sense that you get elected to get here, but then it becomes authoritarian. There will be no free speech, there will be no chance to consider tough issues. Why? Not simply because we do not have enough time. We do not work very much around here. We do this to protect Republican incumbents from having to vote on difficult issues.

The purpose of the Committee on Rules is to make sure that Republicans can follow an extremely conservative leadership and do things that would be unpopular and then pretend that they had no choice. How does that happen? They vote for rules which prevent them from voting on these issues. They then go in a great act of fakery to their constituents and say, Gee, I would have been with you, but I did not get a chance to vote on that issue, having themselves voted on the procedure which kept the issue off the floor. We cannot vote on important issues in the defense bill; we cannot vote on an alternative unemployment compensation.

It is a conscious and deliberate pattern, and it is particularly to accommodate that extraordinary breed known as the ``moderate Republican.'' They specialize in razzle-dazzle. They specialize in being loyal executors of extreme right-wing policies, but in a way that allows them to go home and disclaim any responsibility for what they were doing. It would not be plausible to claim they were drunk for an entire session. That is usually the way people explain that sort of thing.

So what they do is to vote for rules, procedures that keep controversial issues off the floor, so they can then go and mislead their constituents by saying that they would have supported their position, but they did not have a chance to do it.

It is a self-inflicted constraint. It is the reverse Houdini. Houdini used to have people tie him in knots, and he would go before the people and untie the knots. What moderate Republicans do is the reverse Houdini. The moderate Republicans tie themselves in knots, and then they go before the voters and say, Gee, I'm sorry I couldn't help you, but I was all tied up in knots.

Let us vote against this rule and put an end to the most fundamental, political and intellectual dishonesty.

Mr. Speaker, I just have to express my dismay at the anti-American diatribe we have just heard. I am sorry to hear this defeatist attitude about the American economy. The American economy continues to be a vibrant one overall, and to have it so thoroughly denigrated and to be told that no one ought to want to go into business in America is a shockingly anti-American approach.

Mr. Speaker, I was appalled 2 weeks ago to read that Deputy Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, one of the key policymakers in this administration, had publicly criticized, for Turkish consumption, the Turkish military for abiding by democracy. In an interview, which I will put into the Record, with CNN Turk, Deputy Secretary Wolfowitz repeatedly criticized the Turkish military because it had allowed democracy to function in Turkey. And he ought to resign. We have much too much at stake in our effort to bring stable democracy to the world in general, and particularly the Middle East, to allow a man to stay in that high office who has allowed himself to say that the military did too little, was not strong enough in pressing a democratically elected government. Indeed, it is especially disturbing to have that said with regard to the government of Turkey.

Trying to encourage Islamist movements that are genuinely democratic is one of our highest goals. The clash that some have argued exists between Islamic fundamentalism and democracy is a terrible threat to the world. We have in Turkey now a government that has Islamist groups, the political majority, and is also committed to democracy. And that parliament made a decision, not the government but the parliament, that we did not like. It failed to get a sufficient majority to join us in the war effort.

And here is what Paul Wolfowitz has to say: `` . . . many of the institutions in Turkey that we think of as the traditional strong support is the alliance were not as forceful in leading in that direction.''

Question: ``Which traditional alliance are you talking about?''

`` . . . I think particularly the military.'' This is Mr. Wolfowitz: ``I think for whatever reason they did not play the strong leadership role on that issue that we would have expected.'' And the questioners were somewhat puzzled. Here is a high American official. We have said we are going to war in Iraq in part to bring about democracy, and he is criticizing a military in Turkey because it had not strongly tried to influence the elected officials? So they say what kind of a role the military might have because after all the military is not in parliament. And another interviewer says: ``And they have been criticized by getting involved in politics.''

Mr. Wolfowitz seems to realize he said something that he should not have, but he cannot help himself. His contempt for the democratic process, if it comes out with results he does not like, was too strong. His partisanship on this issue was too strong. So here is what Mr. Wolfowitz says: ``I'm not suggesting you get involved in politics at all. I mean, I think, all I'm saying is that when you had an issue of Turkey's national interest . . . I think it's perfectly appropriate, especially in your system,'' my emphasis, ``for the military to say it was in Turkey's interest to support the United States in that effort.''

The interviewer says: ``Didn't they say that?''

Mr. Wolfowitz's response: ``I don't know. My impression is they didn't say it with the kind of strength that would have made a difference.''

In other words, they did not muscle the government. They did not use armed force, the threat of armed force, as unfortunately the Turkish military has in the past, to force the Turkish Parliament to take an action which we wanted them to take.

Mr. Wolfowitz is the Deputy Secretary of Defense. As David Greenway pointed out in the Boston Globe last week, ``The Turks are perfectly aware of the Pentagon's creeping takeover of U.S. foreign policy. There will be some who consider Wolfowitz's remarks as encouragement to boot out Erdogan,'' the Turkish prime minister.

Let me stress again how important it is for the experiment we are seeing in Turkey to succeed, a democratic Islamist government, and they had a tough issue that we dropped in their laps; and the parliament voted and the government tried and could not get a majority. And the Deputy Secretary of Defense says the military was not strong enough, the military did not intervene forcefully enough the way that they traditionally have? This is appalling to have such a high-ranking American official say this, and we have already got problems in post- war Iraq.

The administration's policy is a shambles there. Mr. Wolfowitz can take some of the responsibility for that. He is one of those who scoffed when Army Chief of Staff Shinseki said we are going to need several hundred thousand troops, and now of course we are being told 150,000 troops is not enough. But we have this terrible problem in Iraq clearly now since there have not been found the kinds of weapons that the administration said there would be, certainly not in the quantity they predicted.

The justification for Iraq is the impact it will have on governments in Iraq and in the rest of the Middle East. How does it help to have our Deputy Secretary of Defense, one of the shapers of that policy, now say, by the way, when we say democracy, we mean a democracy where the military intervenes strongly, not just gives its viewpoint but intervenes strongly to make sure things come out? Things in Iraq and our credibility are in enough trouble without Paul Wolfowitz compounding it, and he ought to resign.

[From the Boston Globe, May 16, 2003]

Democracy, Neocon Style

(By H.D.S. Greenway)

Neoconservatives, who have risen to great power and

influence within the Bush administration, have told us of

their sweeping design to transform the Middle East into a

model of democracy. Skeptics have demurred, but the neocons

have countered that the doubters lack vision. There have been

recent events, however, that bring into question the

sincerity of these grand visionaries.

Take, for example, the recent remarks of Deputy Secretary

of Defense Paul Wolfowitz, perhaps the most influential of

the right-wing conservatives in government. Although the

State Department got most of the blame for the diplomatic

debacle over Turkey's failure to allow US troops to transit

en route to Iraq, it was Wolfowitz who conducted much of the

negotiations.

As it was, Turkey's new, democratically elected Parliament

said no, much to Washington's chagrin and to the

embarrassment of the Turkish government, which had urged a

``yes'' vote. Turkey was not the first government in a

democratic state to be rebuffed by legislators. It happens in

the United States all the time.

But last week, in an interview with CNN, Wolfowitz lashed

out at the Turkish military for the failure to fall into

line. ``I think for whatever reason, they did not play the

strong leadership role that we would have expected,'' he

said.

Consider the ramifications of this statement in the Turkish

context. Democracy in Turkey is alive but fragile. Open

elections began only in the 1950s. Traditionally the Turkish

military has seen itself as the guardian of the secular state

that Kemal Ataturk put into place following the end of the

Ottoman Empire after World War I.

The Turkish generals have made it a habit to step in from

time to time to dismiss governments they do not like,

returning rule to

civilians only when it suits them. The last time this

happened was in the late 1990s, when Prime Minister Necmettin

Erbakan was chucked out of power by the military for being

too anti-Western and too Islamic.

Islam is a growing force in Turkey, especially among the

rural poor now flooding into cities. Turkey's armed forces

and the elites are determined to keep the country secular.

Recent Turkish elections swept all the establishment parties

away and brought to power a new Parliament with a decided

Islamic bent. Its leader, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, a former

mayor of Istanbul, was at first banned from becoming prime

minister because of a nationalistic poem with Islamic imagery

that he had once read aloud.

But Erdogan and his party had gone out of their way to be

pro-West and moderate, and the military kept to its barracks.

Eventually, Erdogan was allowed to assume the prime ministry,

which he deserved, but not before he had been received by

President Bush in the White House.

Bush rightly decided that, far from being a threat

Erdogan's clean government ticket could serve as an example

of how a Middle Eastern government could be Islamic,

democratic, moderate, and pro-Western all at the same time.

Erdogan and his government wanted to allow US troops to use

Turkish soil to attack Iraq, and not just because of the huge

bribe the United States had offered. But the government

couldn't persuade enough legislators. Many Turks felt the

Parliament had made a mistake, that Turkish interests had

been hurt, but the Parliament didn't agree, and that was

that. End of story; or so it should have been.

One might have thought that anyone interested in true

democracy would have been impressed and delighted. Here was

Parliament defying the government, and the military didn't

intervene. An American foreign policy goal is to get the

European Union to accept Turkey. One of the EU's legitimate

complaints is that the EU is a grouping of democracies and

that the banana republic-like actions of the Turkish military

over the years indicate that Turkey's democracy is only a

sometime thing. But this time around, the Turkish military

was not interfering.

Then up steps Paul Wolfowitz, saying that the Turkish

military had not played ``the strong leadership role that we

would have expected.'' Does that mean that, in Wolfowitz's

view, there should have been a military coup? Or that the

Turkish generals should have threatened the Parliament? In

the Turkish context there is every reason to interpret the

deputy secretary of defense's remarks in that way.

The Turks are perfectly aware of the Pentagon's creeping

takeover of US foreign policy. There will be some who

consider Wolfowitz's remarks as encouragement to boot out

Erdogan as they did Erbakan. Americans have a right to ask:

Do the neocons really want democracy, or do they simply want

to bully the Middle East into a semblance of democracy that

will toe the American line and further neoconservative

imperial fantasies?

Mr. Speaker. Among the sillier policies that are pursued because some people do not like gay men and lesbians is the one which refuses to allow gay and lesbian Americans to serve their country in the armed forces. This is in great contrast to, to take a particularly striking example, Israel, which has openly gay and lesbian people in the Israeli Defense Force. Those who argue that the presence of openly gay and lesbian soldiers erodes morale have a very hard time explaining the example of the IDF.

In our own country, this self-inflicted mood reached new depths recently when the military began expelling from its ranks people who were becoming expert in Arabic and other languages, which are relevant to our fight against terrorism. From ``don't ask, don't tell'' we have proceeded to ``don't ask, don't tell, don't translate,'' and our national interest is a loser. We already have too few people skilled in translating many of the languages that are used by terrorists, and we detract from our own security by turning away those who would help us overcome this deficiency.

Recently, the Linguistic Society of America founded in 1924 ``for the advancement of the

scientific study of language'' spoke out against this policy. That meeting adopted the following resolution and because of the importance of this issue to our national security, I ask that it be printed here.

Whereas linguists, translators, and interpreters serving at

the Defense Language Institute have made important

contributions to the nation's defense since the Institute's

inception;

Whereas language specialists fluent in Arabic and other

critical languages are especially vital to U.S. national

security at this time;

Whereas the General Accounting Office reports that there is

currently a serious shortage of such linguists in the

military;

Whereas the military's recent dismissal of highly trained

and highly skilled language specialists who are gay or

lesbian presents a significant risk to national security;

Whereas sexual orientation is irrelevant to one's job

performance, and discrimination on the basis of sexual

orientation is unjust;

Therefore be it resolved that the Linguistic Society of

America make known its opposition to the U.S. military's

policy of dismissing linguists, translators, interpreters, or

other members of the armed forces on the basis of their

sexual orientation.

Mr. Speaker, sadly this bill reminds me of some comments we heard just a week or so ago from leading corporate executives who, having signed an agreement in which it was clear that their companies had abused the trust of investors, tried by public statements to water that down, and I admire the vigor with which the new head of the Securities and Exchange Commission Mr. Donaldson, who appears to be doing a good job, spoke out harshly against them.

What he said was, look, we have got to acknowledge that we made, as a society, serious errors, and we have to be willing to make a whole- hearted effort to correct them, and essentially what we saw were chief executives of culpable corporations who were making it clear that whatever reforms they had agreed to came grudgingly and reluctantly.

That is what this bill is. It is a grudging, reluctant acknowledgment that something had to be done, and it is an effort in the face of serious wrongdoing that took hard-earned money away from large numbers of people to do as little as people think they can get by with.

This is a time for us to be forthcoming. This is a time for us to do an expansive piece of legislation protecting people. We are not dealing with speculative ills here. We are dealing with real harm that was done to real people. And a bill such as this, a grudging and partial acknowledgment that there were some mistakes but a refusal to deal with them in their entirety, is the same spirit that we saw from these corporate executives: you caught us, and you are going to make us do something; but we are going to fight you every step of the way, and we are not going to give any wholehearted endorsement to measures that will change things.

The measures that are in the Democratic substitute that will be coming forward represent, frankly, the spirit in which the head of the SEC spoke, and I hope we adopt it.

Mr. Speaker, on this coming Sunday, May 11, Young Israel of Brookline, Massachusetts will honor Lance Kawesch and Emily Stein, ``for the years of excellent service, tireless devotion and total dedication to Young Israel and our community.''

Mr. Kawesch and Ms. Stein joined Young Israel shortly after their marriage, and have been hard working and valuable members of the Congregation ever since. Lance has served as President, and Emily is the Office Manager and Director of Operations. Between them, they have organized, supported, and contributed to a wide range of the important educational, religious, charitable and cultural activities which mark the work of Young Israel. Young Israel is a vibrant part of the district which I represent, and I am pleased to have the chance to join the members of Young Israel in saluting the important work of Lance Kawesch and Emily Stein.

Mr. Speaker, if people want a dictionary illustration of adding insult to injury, the Republicans are providing it. They do great injury today to the principle of nondiscrimination, and they have added to that the insult of not allowing this House to debate it.

As the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Van Hollen) made clear, this is the first time we will be removing from the statute books an existing antidiscrimination provision, one that says you cannot take Federal money and then discriminate against some of the people who paid the taxes. If you are a particular organization, you can say, I do not care if you are Jewish and pay taxes or Catholic and pay taxes. I do not care if you are a Protestant and pay taxes, if you believe in abortion. I do not care if you are a Methodist and pay taxes, if you agree on evolution. We will exclude you.

It is appalling to me that they are going to be able to engineer this enormous regression in the principle of nondiscrimination without there even being a separate vote and debate. It is a tribute to the Republican majority, the most submissive body of elected officials gathered since the dissolution of the Supreme Soviet that they will ratify this decision to roll back a fundamental constitutional provision, a fundamental antidiscrimination public policy provision, and they will all march down and vote not to allow it to be debated.

The gentleman from Ohio is right. In 1965 there was an exemption for religion organizations, and it was expanded in 1972. A Senator said at the time, ``This is to keep the hands of Caesar off of the place of God.''

Now we are talking about the hands of Caesar coming to the religious institutions bearing money. And we were

saying this, if you as a religious institution want to preserve your autonomy, hire only whom you want, that is your right. But do not tell Americans of all religions to pay taxes and then take those tax dollars and say, but you are the wrong religion. You are the right religion but the wrong doctrine. And that is what this does.

It removes it from the statute books. The law now says you cannot discriminate based on religion. People have said, well, we need this so that religious organizations are not denied funds because of their name. Well, in the first place, that is up to the current administration. What is George Bush saying? Stop me before I discriminate again? If he does not want to discriminate, he has a good way to stop discriminating.

You know the person who went to the doctor and he said, Doctor, it hurts when I go like this. The doctor said, Do not go like this.

Mr. President, do not go like this. Do not discriminate. But do not take people's tax dollars and say you can only hire your own.

The question is two fold: Do we maintain the principle that if you take Federal money, if you are a religious organization and to be autonomous, that is fine? By the way, for secular purposes, remember by definition the religious group can only take Federal money for secular purposes. It would be unconstitutional as everyone acknowledges to give tax dollars to a religion for religious purposes. So the question is can a religious organization take money for secular purposes and discriminate? And we are told, well, wait, it is important for them to hold together.

It seems to me the worst thing being said about religious organizations are the people who say, you know what, if you want Baptist or Jews or Mormons or Catholics to help other people, you better not make them associate with nonbelievers. They can only help people find jobs, they can only give job training as long as they are free from the spiritual pollution of having to teach these jobs alongside nonbelievers. That is a condemnation of religion that I hope this House will not engage in, compounded by a denial of democracy on the floor of the House. To bring forward such an important issue and use your submissive majority to prevent debate is contemptible.

Mr. Speaker, if I had an indefensible point I would not yield either, despite all the time they have.

If, in fact, a religious organization get money for job training, they have a right to refuse to hire someone who does not believe in job training. If they have hired because they are going to try and fight drug addiction, they do not have to hire someone who is for drug addiction.

If the gentleman thinks I am going to yield him after he refused to yield to me when he has all the time and I do not, let him get some more time from his side which has the extra time and is sitting on it, and I will debate him.

The fact is that any organization has the right to deny people a job if they disagree with the job for which they are being hired. So, no, you do not have to hire someone who disagrees with what you are being hired for. That is totally not the case. And by the way, this law about discrimination does apply across the board.