Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, many thousands of American men and women are serving in Iraq under very dangerous conditions. Often, we at home go about our daily business and forget the deep loyalty and responsibility of our brave soldiers half a world away. And even more, we often forget what war means for the children in Iraq.

I want to tell you, today, about a community of young people who have not forgotten that our soldiers are in Iraq, or that their mission is, ultimately, to build peace. These first, second and third graders at Elmore Lake School in Vermont not only remember the larger mission of our soldiers, they have sent packages to reach out to the children of Iraq, who like themselves are students in schools.

These young students at Elmore Lake School also wrote letters to Iraqi schoolchildren, made pictures for them, and then put the letters and pictures into parcels filled with school supplies that the Elmore children packed and weighed for mailing. They were assisted by their teacher, Annamary Anderson and parent Sarah Southall, and by Vermont National Guard Captain Dave Matzo, who distributed the packages when he returned to Iraq from a home leave. The contents of the packages were provided by the school's children and their families. The Lamoille Valley Chamber of Commerce found kind sponsors who paid the cost of postage.

The letters written by the children remind us, remind us all, that war is not something abstract, but a situation which involves human beings. Here is one example, a letter from a student named Sebastian that was reprinted in the News and Citizen of Morrisville. It is remarkably eloquent, not only in its ability to reach out across oceans and continents to children elsewhere, but in its reminder to all of us of just what war may mean to those who must live in its midst:

Dear Children in Iraq, I feel bad for you because you are

probably scared because you have a war going on in your

country. I don't think it is right for kids to have to deal

with this. I don't even know why people are fighting! I would

definitely be very scared if I had a war going on close by!

So my class in school thought we should give you kids school

supplies. I hope the war stops soon, there is already enough

bad things going on in your country! I wish you good luck!

Sincerely,

Sebastian L.W.

I offer my deep respect, and that of my state and Nation, to these thoughtful and giving young students in Elmore, who have taught all of us to think deeply about war and about generosity.

Madam Speaker, let me begin by suggesting that as the only Independent in the House of Representatives, my view of things is a little bit different than my Republican friend; in fact, some of my Democrat colleagues.

When I look out in America today, what I see that is important are not just statistics, but what is going on in the real lives of real people, of what is going on in the middle class in America, the vast majority of our people, what is going on in our communities. And in a broad sense, when I look at America today, I see an economic reality which includes the shrinking of the middle class, the reality that ordinary people in my State of Vermont and all over this country are working longer hours for lower wages. I look out at a time when in family after family it is absolutely necessary for two breadwinners to be working in order to pay the bills and often at the end of the week have less disposable income than a one-income family had 30 years ago.

So I look out and I see that despite a huge increase in worker productivity, a huge explosion in technology, which makes us a much more productive society, that at the end of the day, despite all of that, the middle class is shrinking.

And when I look out in my State and I look throughout this country, I see another phenomenon, and that is that poverty is increasing; that in the last 5 years alone, since George W. Bush has been President, over 5 million more Americans have entered the ranks of the poor. And when I look at what is happening in America today with the middle class shrinking, with poverty increasing, I see another reality, a reality, in fact, that is not talked about terribly much on the floor of this House or, in fact, in the corporate-owned media, and that is that the wealthiest people in America today have never had it so good. Poverty increasing, the middle class shrinking, and people on the top doing phenomenally well.

That is the economic reality of America today.

Madam Speaker, since President Bush took office, the average annual household family income has declined by $2,500, approximately 4.8 percent. Furthermore, earnings also declined last year. This decrease in earnings was the largest 1-year decline in 14 years for men, but women also saw a decline in income. So what we are seeing in America, despite all of the rhetoric, all of the statistics being thrown around, is that people are not keeping up with inflation.

Madam Speaker, a recent income analysis by the IRS showed that in 2003, the last year that they studied, only those Americans in the top 1 percent saw an increase in their income above inflation; and amazingly enough, it was not just the top 1 percent that did well. It was the top one-tenth of 1 percent that really made the increased income. Meanwhile, while the top 1 percent in 2003 was the only group to earn more money above inflation, 99 percent of the American people were unable to earn enough income to keep up with inflation. In fact, the IRS data shows us that the wealthiest one-tenth of 1 percent earned more income than the bottom one-third of American taxpayers.

So what we are seeing in our country today is a decline of the middle class, an increase in poverty, and a growing gap between the rich and the poor. In fact, with the exception of Russia and Mexico, the United States today has the greatest gap between the rich and the poor of any major country on Earth, and that gap today is substantially wider than it was at any time since the 1920s in this country.

When we talk about the growing gap between the rich and the poor, when we talk about increase in wealth among the very wealthiest people in our country, it is rather incredible to understand that the richest 400 Americans, the wealthiest 400 Americans, are now worth $1.1 trillion. Madam Speaker, that incredible amount of money among 400 families equals the annual income of over 45 percent of the entire world's population, or 2.5 billion people. On the one hand, 400 families have more wealth than is the income of 2.5 billion people in this world.

In 2004, when we talk about the growing gap between the rich and the poor, what we see is that in 2004 the President of the United States said, yes, we have a serious problem here. What is the answer?

Well, the answer is that in 2004, American families making more than $1 million a year received tax cuts averaging $123,000 a year. So we have a situation where the gap between the rich and the poor is growing wider, where the wealth of the upper-income people, the wealthiest people in this country, is getting bigger; and this White House and Republican leadership responds by giving those particular people huge tax breaks.

Madam Speaker, when we talk about what is going on in America, it is important to recognize that in 1980, the average pay of the CEOs of the largest corporations in America was 41 times larger than that of what blue collar workers then earned. By 2004, the average pay of those CEOs increased to 431 times larger. So in 2004 we have a situation where the CEOs of the largest corporations in America are now earning over 400 times what blue collar workers in this country are earning.

Is that what America is supposed to be about? Are we supposed to be a country in which the wealthiest 1 percent own more wealth than the bottom 90 percent, where the richest 13,000 families earn more income than the bottom 20 million families, where the people on top are able to use their wealth to make enormous political contributions that shape policy that benefits them, that the wealthiest people are able to own the media which describes reality for ordinary people in a way that benefits them? Is that what America is supposed to be about? I think not.

Madam Speaker, I am delighted that I have been joined by a very good friend of mine, in my view one of the outstanding Members of the United States Congress, a leader, fighting for the middle class, fighting for our environment, the gentleman from Oregon (Mr. DeFazio).

Madam Speaker, I thank my friend for his comments. My friend mentioned the Delphi Corporation, which is in Michigan, I believe. I want to say a word about that. It is not in my district. Why is it important, what is happening there?

In general, and we will get to the whole trade issue, the whole globalization that has been pushed on this country by corporate America in order to make the wealthiest people and the large corporations richer while working people see a decline in their standard of living, we will get to that in a moment. But what this attack on the workers, unionized workers, UAW workers at the Delphi Corporation is about is something of huge national significance.

As the middle class declines, it is absolutely not uncommon, from Maine to California, that workers see some decline in their wages; workers are forced to pay more for their health care; workers are losing some or all of their pensions. That is going on all over this country as we move in a race to the bottom.

But what this Delphi Corporation business is about is something more. That is not a slow decline in our standard of living; that is a precipitous collapse in the standard of living of working people. What I fear very much is that what happened at Delphi, that particular concept can spread all over this country.

What happened at Delphi, which recently filed for bankruptcy, is that the workers there had solid, middle-class incomes. They were doing well. They could send their kids to college; they had decent homes. They were making $25 or $30 an hour, solid, middle-class income.

The company files for bankruptcy, and what the CEO there says is you are not going to make $25 an hour anymore; you are going to make $10. You are going to go from the middle class to poverty, like that.

Then a fellow named Jerry Jasinowski, who is the president of the Manufacturing Institute at the National Association of Manufacturers, which, by the way, has been one of the leading forces in this country in pushing unfettered free trade and unfettered globalization on America, they push it on America, and then in responding to the attack on the workers at Delphi, this is what he says:

``From airline pilots to auto assembly workers, employees need to help reduce their costs. We can't afford to live with the very generous benefits we provided 10-15 years ago.''

What he is saying in English is, if you are a working person, what is happening to the Delphi employees could happen to you, should happen to you. The rich get richer.

Last year the CEOs of major corporations earned a 54 percent increase in their compensation. The gap between the rich and the poor is growing wider, and what these people at the National Association of Manufacturers say is, hey, working people all over this country, tighten your belt.

We are taking it away from you. You thought you were in the middle class. You thought you could provide an education to your kids, have decent health care, have some security. Forget it. We are in a race to the bottom, and there are workers in China who are making 30 cents an hour. How dare you think you could earn $50,000 or $60,000 a year? Not anymore.

I yield to the gentleman from Oregon.

If I might, let me just pick up on that point, because you are absolutely right. Let us be clear about what has happened here in the last 20 years.

Corporate America woke up one day and they said, hmm, why do we have to pay American workers American wages, provide health insurance, negotiate on occasion with unions, obey environmental laws, pay taxes in the United States of America? Why do we have to do that when you have billions of people in China, desperately poor people in Latin America, in other countries, who will work for us for almost nothing? Now, just because we, who are the heads of major corporations that grew grapes here in the United States because of American workers, who became profitable giants because of American consumers, well, we do not have to respect that. We do not owe any allegiance, in fact, to the United States of America. In fact, they say, we are not American corporations. Oh, yes, we are American corporations when we come to D.C. in order to get billions of dollars in corporate welfare from the American taxpayers. Oh, yes, we speak English well, and we are American corporations on those days. But on every other day, if we can throw American workers out on the street, move to China, hire desperate people there at 30 cents an hour, who go to jail if they try to form an independent union, who are breathing air that is highly polluted because the environmental standards are virtually nonexistent, we are international corporations. We are off and running.

And that was clearly what they had in mind at the very beginning of this whole debate on free trade, and that is, in fact, what they have done, and that is, in fact, what they are doing.

From their perspective, what globalization is about is telling an American worker, hey, shape up, fellow, because there are people over there who can work for 10 percent of what you are working for. And if you are not prepared to take cutbacks in health care, cutbacks in wages, give up your pension, we are picking up, we are going to China, and guess what? Because of permanent normal trade relations, which Congress passed, my goodness, they could bring those products back into this country without any tariff whatsoever. We do not need you anymore. So industry after industry, whether it is steel, whether it is furniture, whether it is textiles, whether it is footwear.

In fact, one of the interesting things, Christmas is coming soon, and during Christmastime people do an enormous amount of shopping, and they go to the stores and they look and they try to find products made in the United States of America, and they look and they look and they look. And as Mr. DeFazio mentioned, it is harder and harder to find products manufactured in America, because our corporations have essentially taken our manufacturing base and sent it to China.

As Mr. DeFazio indicated, this is really bad not just for the standard of living for American workers, it is very dangerous for the future of our country in a dozen different respects. How do you defend yourself as a nation in terms of national defense if you are not making products in this country anymore to be used by the military? How are you a great country when you are no longer producing real products, but are now engaged only in service industry-type work?

I yield to the gentleman.

I believe, roughly speaking, although I do not have the exact words in front of me, but what he said is something like, if a product can be made less expensively abroad than in the United States, it makes sense to do that. So essentially what he is telling us, and this is the President of the United States' economic adviser, what he is saying to every corporation in America is, hey, dummy, they pay 50 cents an hour there, $15 an hour here, where are you going to go? Go. So what you have is the Bush administration essentially telling corporate America that they should throw American workers out on the street and move abroad.

I remember a couple of years ago, one of the largest corporations in America is, of course, General Electric. The fellow who is head of that corporation is a guy named Jeff Immelt. Mr. Immelt spoke to some GE investors and he said, and I roughly quote here, not the exact quote, he said, when I look at the future of General Electric, I see China, China, China, China, and China. Why not? Why would you want to pay an American worker a decent wage? Why would you want to reinvest in Oregon or in the State of Vermont when you can hire people abroad for 50 cents an hour or $1 an hour, and they go to jail if they stand up for their political rights? It sounds like a great place to do business to me.

Let me interrupt my friend and tell you, I do not know if you have been to Mexico to view this.

I have been on several occasions to Machiadora, and what a sad sight it is. When you go there you see these modern factories, and then a mile away from these modern factories, not only by American interests, but European interests, Japanese interests, a mile away from those modern factories you see people literally living in cardboard shacks because their income is so low, their wages are so low that they cannot afford decent housing, even by Mexican standards, being exploited terribly.

But that is what we are seeing, a huge shift in manufacturing from the United States to China and to Mexico. And do you want to hear one of the ironies is that many of these corporations who have gone to Mexico are now leaving Mexico in order to go to China, because they do not want to pay Mexican workers $1 an hour. Go to China. You can pay people there 50 cents an hour.

It is a very serious problem currently existing in Mexico, and it is part of that whole race to the bottom.

American workers, that is where our competition is. That is what this President, this Congress has said. Your competition are desperate people earning pennies an hour and if you don't lower your standard of living, they are going there.

Is that a sensible policy for the middle class of this country? Obviously it is not. Nobody here is not concerned about the poor people in the world. We want to see those people being able to feed their kids, have decent jobs, have health care, have education. But you don't have to destroy the middle class of this country in order to improve the standard of living of poor people around the world. We can do both. We can raise the standard of living of American workers and improve the lives of poor people around the world rather than engage in this race to the bottom.

I would like to mention to my friend, we can stay on the trade issue, but I know he has been very involved and we have worked together on this issue of the greed and the rip-offs being perpetrated literally today by ExxonMobil and the other large oil companies. I think just today, if my memory is correct, ExxonMobil announced that in the last quarter, the last 3 months, they earned $10 billion in profits which as I understand it is more than any corporation in the history of the United States of America; $10 billion. They are not the only large oil company to be earning record-breaking profits. In my State of Vermont, which obviously gets very cold in the wintertime, we are seeing a lot of senior citizens, lower income people, middle-income people, who are going to be having a very, very difficult time heating their homes this winter because the price of home heating oil is soaring. What I see in my State, a very rural State, where it is not uncommon for workers to travel 100 miles to and from their jobs, paying now $2.60, $2.70 for a gallon of gas, that is what I see. Meanwhile, ExxonMobil has just earned more profits than any other corporation in the history of the United States and every other major oil company is also earning record- breaking profits.

I wonder why the President of the United States has not said to the CEOs of the major oil companies: Come on into my office. Let's go into the Oval Office and let's talk about how you're going to lower gas prices, lower home heating oil prices so the American people don't have to take their paychecks or their limited incomes and give it to the large corporations.

I know my friend has done a lot of work on this issue.

Just so that everyone remembers, one of the points that the President made during his campaign, he comes from an oil background. The Vice President comes from an oil background. They know about these things. So for all folks in America who are paying outrageously high prices for gas at the pump, outrageously high prices for home heating oil, well, we have a President and a Vice President who are very chummy with the oil industry which maybe helps explain why the oil industry is enjoying the highest profits they have ever seen while people all over this country are absolutely getting ripped off. While we talk about oil, I want to divert just a little bit and go back to the trade issue because I know you and I have worked on this one together as well. I always find it so amusing for folks who say, We're great free traders. We believe that competition is where it is.

As everybody in Congress and everybody in America knows, there is an organization called OPEC, Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries. OPEC's very reason for existence, the reason they came together, was to be a cartel which could limit production and raise profits. That is what they are. They acknowledge it. This is a self- acknowledged cartel. So I find it just so curious that for an administration, for leaders here in Congress who tell us how much they believe in competition and the free market, I find it quite amazing that I have not heard one word from the White House about the need to take action at the World Trade Organization to break up OPEC so that we can see honest competition from different countries and companies in terms of the oil they are producing.

Have you heard the President, the great exponent of free enterprise and competition, raise that issue?

The reason for all of that is obviously very clear. Virtually every piece of legislation that comes to this floor of the House is frankly bought and paid for. Why would you stand up to our China policy, which has now a $160 billion trade deficit, the loss of millions of jobs, the lowering of wages throughout this country, why would you stand up and try to fight that when you have corporate America investing tens of billions in China, donating huge amounts of money to the President and other political people, why would you stand up for American workers in the middle class when you could defend China and the large corporations that go to China?

When we speak about our trade policy, I don't want anybody to think that we are just talking about blue collar jobs. One of the major economic crises facing our country today is not just the loss of manufacturing jobs in the auto industry, the steel industry, textiles, furniture, et cetera, et cetera. That is hugely important. But what is happening now, in addition to the loss of manufacturing jobs, we are beginning to see the hemorrhaging of white collar information technology jobs. For many years, the rhetoric here in Washington was, well, don't worry too much if you're going to lose the blue collar jobs in your community because that's kind of old-fashioned economics. We're not into that anymore. The real trick is to make sure your kids get a college education and they can go out and get white collar, computer, information technology jobs, make 50, 60, $70,000 a year, good, clean, solid income. That's the future of America.

But what is happening there? What is happening now is corporations are beginning to understand the same thing. Information technology companies are understanding what manufacturing companies are understanding. And, that is, why do you want to hire American workers at 40 or $50,000 a year when there are people in India, China, Russia and elsewhere who can do information technology jobs very, very well for 10 percent of the wages paid in the United States? So what you are beginning to see now is a hemorrhaging of white collar information technology jobs which are impacting people who have college degrees, people who have graduate degrees. We are seeing this taking place at an increasing level. The answer is if we lose blue collar jobs that paid middle-class wages, if we lose white collar jobs that paid middle-class wages, what is left?

Well, I guess it is Wal-Mart time. We have a situation now, in a company like Wal-Mart, which is far and away the largest employer in America today, a company which pays low wages, minimal benefits, virtually no pension plan, that is the future of America, lose good- paying blue-collar jobs, lose good-paying white-collar jobs and move towards the Wal-Mart-type job in which our standard of living becomes less and less.

My friend mentioned the argument in favor of the permanent normal trade relations agreement was this. China is a huge country, with enormous numbers of consumers. Think about the potential market that we are going to have by selling product to China, all the jobs that we are going to be creating. That was the argument.

Well, it turns out I was in China a couple of years ago. We actually met with, I believe the gentleman was the head of Wal-Mart China. We went to Wal-Marts, and we talked to a number of their executives including, I think, the head of Wal-Mart China. Somebody asked a question of them. They said, will you please tell us, we are in your store here, it is a huge store, and in many respects it looks like an American Wal-Mart store.

Somebody asked them, tell me, I am looking around, and I see all of these American products from soaps to basketballs to whatever it is. What percentage of the products here in Wal-Mart China are made in the United States of America and brought to China?

The guy was a little bit sheepish. He really did not want to hear that question. He said 1 percent. Now obviously why would anybody, any large corporation, make a product in the United States and send it to China when you can produce it in China with wages substantially less than they are here.

I think we are running out of time. Maybe we can just kind of wrap this up by saying this. This is a great, great country, and the concern that many of us have is that despite people working harder and harder, despite new technology being there that makes us more productive, for some of the reasons that we have discussed tonight, and many of the others that we have not discussed, what we are seeing in America is that the middle class is becoming poorer. Millions of American families today desperately want to be able to send their kids to college so that their kids will have a better income and standard of living than they do. They cannot afford to do that. What we are seeing is families being stressed out, because both husbands and wives are working incredible hours in my State in Vermont. It is not uncommon for people to be working two or three jobs trying to cobble together an income.

We did not touch on health care, and the disintegration of our health care system, 46 million Americans without any health insurance whatsoever, tens of millions more who are underinsured, people who are dying because they cannot accord to go to a doctor, and their illnesses become so severe that they are incurable by the time they walk into the doctor's office.

We did not touch on the greed of the pharmaceutical industry, which makes huge contributions to the political profession, mostly to the Republicans, and the result being that we end up paying by far the highest prices in the world for prescription drugs; and the passage of a Medicare prescription drug bill, which does not allow Medicare and 43 million recipients to negotiate with the drug company, so drug prices will go up and up.

The bottom line here is, in my view, that unless ordinary Americans, middle-class, working people, begin to stand up and fight back to reclaim this country from a handful of wealthy and powerful interests, who are using their power to make themselves wealthier at the expense of almost everybody else, unless we turn that around, the future of this country is not great for our kids and our grandchildren, everything being equal. Our kids will have a lower standard of living than we will.

I would like to let my friend from Oregon conclude.

We have got to stop it.

The House and the Senate and the White House. They have it all.

Let me just conclude by thanking my friend from Oregon for being with me today.

Mr. Speaker, I wish to extend congratulations to Bellows Free Academy of St. Albans, Vermont, on its 75th anniversary. Our democratic society depends for its very existence on an educated and informed population. In that respect, there is no task in our society more important than educating our youth. For three-quarters of a century, BFA has been doing just that for students in St. Albans and surrounding towns in Franklin County: educating area students academically and preparing them to fully participate in our American democracy.

So it is a particular pleasure for me to recognize the magnitude of this achievement: for 75 years Bellows Free Academy has taught the young citizens of St. Albans and its neighboring towns. Those seven and a half decades have seen the high school serve as a binding force in the community, bringing it together behind sports and drama and whole variety of activities. They have seen generation after generation of young people fully prepared by BFA for the challenges of the adult world, young people whom BFA has taught and trained so they can find satisfying work and take their place as active and concerned members of their communities.

Of course, any institution is really only a reflection of the dedication and commitment of all the people involved with it. So recognition of BFA's 75-year history is really a recognition of the administrators, teachers, and, of course, students--present and former--who themselves are a living testament to the important role that BFA has played and continues to play in the lives of so many since its founding.

At time of this celebration, let me offer the wish that many, many more decades of rich and productive accomplishment lay ahead for Bellows Free Academy, its students, its teachers and its support community.

How long was this vote for?

My understanding is this was a 5-minute vote; is that correct?

And how many minutes have elapsed? How many minutes have elapsed since the vote was called?

Fourteen for a 5-minute vote. I thank the Chair.

Parliamentary Inquiries

Mr. MARKEY (during the vote). Mr. Speaker, parliamentary inquiry.

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure, a great pleasure, for me to inform you, my colleagues in Congress, and through you the entire nation, about the kind of public service and dedication found in Vermont and, I suspect, in other villages, towns and cities throughout America.

Aileen O'Neil has been the town clerk of Woodford, Vermont for 36 years. For well over three decades she has met the needs of the people in her town of 421 citizens, keeping the town going and its records up to date. Her long and dedicated service was recently recognized by the Vermont Municipal Clerks and Treasurers Association, for they named her Vermont's Town Clerk of the Year.

During all of those 36 years Aileen O'Neil has done what needs to be done, with care, with courtesy, and with a concern for the public life we share with one another. What she told a newspaper reporter recently is a model for all of us, for I think each of us would like to be able to say, while still at work after so many years, ``I love my job. I've loved my job all these years. It's a purpose in life for me.''

We are lucky to have her, both as a town clerk in Woodford and as an example for all of us.

Mr. Speaker, I wish to commend the Northeast Sustainable Energy Association for its efforts this past weekend in its 2005 Green Buildings Open House. The Open House consisted of tours of ``green'' energy facilities in homes and businesses, in all the New England States, as well as in Delaware, New Jersey, New York and Pennsylvania.

In Vermont, there were tours in Burlington, Cavendish, Hartland, Montpelier, Strafford and White River Junction, as well as in Northern, Central and Southern Vermont. The tours included a great variety of sites, including homes, businesses and schools. Alternative energy sources included solar (active and passive), wind, micro-hydro, as well as alternate construction methods and alternative fuel vehicles.

We are overly dependent on fossil fuels. Not only does dependence pose environmental problems ranging from air pollution to acid rain to global warming, it also puts our national security at risk, requiring foreign policies driven more by the needs of oil companies than by the interests of American families and small businesses.

But there are ways to conserve our environment and reduce our dependence on fossil fuels. We can better insulate our homes. The dollars invested in energy conservation pay off over and over again, in reduced energy consumption and reduced costs for heating and cooling. We can find and develop clean and renewable sources of energy like solar, wind, water and geothermal. They are domestically produced, infinitely renewable, and non-polluting. And we can learn to use more energy-efficient appliances in our homes and offices.

Developing sources of alternative energy and conserving the energy we currently use are smart policies, not only because fossil fuel is encumbered with many problems, but because long-term conservation and alternative energy are more efficient. And moving along those lines creates jobs, jobs here at home, good paying jobs.

So I extend my congratulations to the Northeast Sustainable Energy Association and the many homeowners and building owners, as well as the guides for these tours, who worked to show us all how much can be accomplished if we have a vision of a better and more energy- sustainable future.

Mr. Speaker, Burlington, Vermont, as I know from my years as Mayor, is one of America's most livable cities. One of the primary reasons for its preeminence and livability is the vibrant arts scene in Vermont's largest city and in the surrounding region. Be it music, dance, theater or film, Burlington is and has been alive with creativity. The same is true for writing of all sorts, so we celebrate a notable moment when much of this writing was showcased at the first Burlington Literary Festival. I extend my congratulations on the inaugural Burlington Literary Festival, to its sponsors Burlington City Arts, Burlington Magazine and the Fletcher Free Library, to festival organizer Susan Weiss, and to the many, many writers who participated.

In particular, I want to highlight that the Festival was dedicated to Katherine Paterson of Barre, Vermont. She is, with all due apologies to Grace Paley and the extraordinary writers who attended the conference, the most honored of all contemporary Vermont authors, with not one but two National Book Awards, not one but two Newberry Medals--and the Hans Christian Anderson Medal as well!

When she writes for children, she takes their intellectual, ethical and political capacities with high seriousness. Social issues, international dimensions, and, if I am correct, a revisiting of the Bread and Roses strike in her next book: this is not escapist literature, but instead writing which draws its young readers into the world they live in, even as they encounter the remarkable characters and circumstances that enliven the domain of fiction.

But Katherine Paterson knows that life asks more of us than writing, important as writing surely is. She established the ``Read to Live'' program to bring books, story-telling and other activities to Venezuelan communities which had been damaged and devastated by massive flooding. That program was so successful in giving children a sense of community and hope that it has been a model for programs in Indonesia for children left homeless by the tsunami, and is serving as a template for programs that will help the children or New Orleans and other cities destroyed by Hurricane Katrina.

We are proud to have Katherine Paterson living and working among us in Vermont, creating with the many other writers in attendance at the Burlington Literary Festival the imaginative fabric of American life. We wish her, and all, the very best as they continue to create in words both the America that is, and the America that can be.

Mr. Speaker, I wish to tell you a story, and in so doing commend a wonderful grassroots project in northern Vermont. It is a small story and a simple one, but it says volumes about the generosity and support of the people of Vermont, and the care that the citizens of our nation as a whole extend to those who are bravely serving in our military forces.

Sharon Waterhouse, of Richford, Vermont decided to sew a Christmas stocking for her son, Josh, who is serving in Iraq with other members of the Vermont National Guard, and stuff it with small Christmas gifts. It immediately occurred to her that she could sew stockings for his whole unit, all 32 of his fellow Vermont National Guard members.

But Ms. Waterhouse didn't stop there. Since she loves to sew, she set a course to make 500 stockings, asking her aunt, Andrea Bowden, to help get donations to stuff them. Michelle Long of the Guard Family Readiness Group pitched in to arrange the shipping. The Richford Legion and CF's Diner chipped in by setting out donation jars to help buy supplies. And others have volunteered to help sew, including students from Enosburg High School, along with their teachers Jessica Leo and Kaye Mehaffey.

Sharon Waterhouse herself is sewing between 300 and 400 stockings, and with the help of other generous hands, she hopes to provide stockings for the entire Vermont Guard contingent--over 1400 soldiers-- serving in Iraq.

There are moments when our brave men and women in uniform, facing daily dangers in Iraq which we can scarcely imagine, need to know that their nation understands the sacrifices they are willing to make on the Nation's

behalf. What Sharon Waterhouse and the many others working along with her have done is give those soldiers a clear sign that we in America greatly appreciate their dedication and courage.

Mr. Speaker, it gives me great pleasure to bring to your attention, to the attention of the House, and to the attention of the Nation, the remarkable step forward made by the Washington Electric Co- operative in Vermont. This week they opened a new facility which produces electricity from methane, a gas formerly burned as a useless byproduct of the landfill in Coventry, VT. It is a wonderful example of Yankee inventiveness--and Yankee frugality.

The new facility, which costs a relatively modest $8.5 million, will produce enough electricity for one-third of the Washington co-op's customers, a percentage expected to rise to half when the plant is fully operational and tuned to take advantage of all the methane produced by decomposition in the landfill.

In a time of soaring energy and electricity prices, the co-op has not raised electricity prices for 5 years. Rates are not expected to rise in the next 5 years either, because the new powerplant operates economically and the electric utility makes good use of renewable energy certificates.

This is a wonderful lesson for the Nation, which is increasingly pressed by both shortages of fossil fuel and by soaring prices for energy of all sorts.

We need to find sources of alternative energy which can meet our needs for power. Contrary to what the large oil companies tell us, not only are such alternatives available

now, those alternatives are often far more economical than using fossil fuels.

Whether it is methane power, wind power, solar power, geothermal power, or the use of hydrogen fuel cells as an alternative to gasoline in cars, we must cut out dependence on foreign oil now. We will be better off environmentally, our national security will be enhanced, and--as the Washington co-op has so boldly demonstrated--we may well be better off economically as well.

In short, we need an energy revolution by breaking our dependence on fossil fuels. I am very, very confident our small State of Vermont will lead this. We will be noticed by not only the country but the world.

My congratulations to the Washington Electric Co-Op for showing America, with its new facility in Coventry, what can and should be done to make our energy sources secure and sustainable.

Mr. Speaker, there is not a lot that I can add to what my colleagues have said about the tragedy of Hurricane Katrina, about the hundreds of lives that have been lost and the billions of dollars in property damage that has been experienced. But perhaps in the midst of this horror, there might be a silver lining. And if there is a silver lining, it might be that we begin to take a hard look at some of the realities of America, realities that are very rarely talked about here on the floor of the House or in the media.

Clearly, one of the realities that we did observe in New Orleans is that there were thousands and thousands of people there who could not flee the flood because they did not have money, they did not have a car, and they had no place to go. And some of them died because they are poor.

But poverty exists well beyond New Orleans. The fact of the matter is that millions of Americans today live in abject, humiliating poverty. And, tragically, in the last 5 years alone, since President Bush has been in office, the number of poor people in America has grown by 5 million.

So not only are we not addressing the problem of poverty; it is becoming significantly worse. And at a time when a lot of my colleagues talk repeatedly about family values, some 17 percent of the children in America live in poverty, which is by far the highest rate of childhood poverty in the industrialized world. Some of the other industrialized countries have poverty rates of 3, 4 percent. We are over 17 percent.

So if there is a silver lining in Hurricane Katrina, it may be, it may be, it might be that we refocus on the needs of ordinary Americans, and we make fundamental changes in the priorities that have been established in this country in the last 5 years.

Mr. Speaker, it is not just that poverty in America is increasing; it is that the middle class in this country is shrinking. We all know about the explosion in technology. We all know that worker productivity in America is rapidly rising; but in the midst of that, what we are seeing is that real wages, inflation accounted for wages, for millions and millions of workers is going down. People are working two jobs, they are working three jobs, and yet they are further behind economically than they were 20 or 30 years ago.

Mr. Speaker, in America when we talk about priorities, when we talk about our kids, we have got to ask ourselves about our educational system and why it is that throughout this country, in Vermont and virtually every other State in America, our child care situation in America is an absolute disaster. Every psychologist will tell you that the most important years of a person's life are the first few years, and yet in America today we have kids being warehoused in America in facilities where there are inexperienced, underpaid teachers and people who are minding the children. We have millions of other Americans today who would like to go to college, but cannot afford the $35,000 or $40,000 a year that it costs.

To my mind we are wasting huge amounts of intellectual capital by not making college available for all Americans. It is a national disgrace that for the first time in recent years, fewer low-income kids are going to college than used to be the case.

Mr. Speaker, while the middle class is shrinking, poverty is increasing. While some 46 million Americans have no health insurance, while the average American today is paying the highest prices in the world for prescription drugs, there is another reality taking place in America, and that is that the wealthiest people in our country have never had it so good.

What we are seeing today in America is the widest gap between the rich and the poor of any industrialized nation on Earth, and it is wider in America today than at any time since the 1930s.

Mr. Speaker, to my mind a great nation is measured not by the number of billionaires it has, not by the number of nuclear weapons that it has, but in fact how we treat the least amongst us, the elderly, the sick and the poor. By that definition, we are not doing very well at all.

Mr. Speaker, while average Americans were struggling last year just to keep their heads above water economically, maybe to make a few bucks more than inflation was taking away from them, the CEOs of the Forbes largest 500 corporations in America saw a 54 percent increase in their compensation; 54 percent for the CEOs of the largest corporations, while millions of Americans are seeing a decline in their standard of living.

Mr. Speaker, in the midst of the disaster of Hurricane Katrina, in the midst of a period when we are going to be spending tens of millions of dollars rebuilding the gulf coast, at a time when we are spending $300 billion in Iraq, our Republican friends and the President of the United States want to repeal the estate tax and provide hundreds of billions of dollars more in tax breaks for the wealthiest 2 percent who are the only people who will benefit from the repeal of the estate tax and half of those benefits are going to the richest one-tenth of 1 percent.

Yes, we can cut Medicaid by $50 billion. Yes, we can underfund the Veterans Administration so the veterans go on waiting lists all over America. Yes, we can have children sleeping out on the street. There is no money to take care of those needs, but apparently we have hundreds of millions to give to the wealthiest 2 percent, which will drive up our deficit, drive up our national debt and leave all of that to our children.

I would hope that common sense will prevail and that the President and Republican leadership, at a time of a record-breaking national debt, record-breaking deficits, will not give huge tax breaks for people who do not need them. Instead, let us move forward to lowering our deficit. Instead, let us pay attention to the middle class and low- income Americans who need help.

So once again, Mr. Speaker, if there is any silver lining in the disaster and the horror of Hurricane Katrina, it might be that today we begin reevaluating our priorities.

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the city of Burlington Electric Department. What an incredible achievement!

One of the great experiences I had as Mayor was seeing, close up, how much it mattered to Burlington's citizens that we had public power, and not a for-profit corporation, delivering the electricity our city's households and businesses need. The results are clear. Burlington today has some of the lowest electric bills in the state. And that is no small matter when families are hard pressed by increasing gasoline and fuel oil prices, and the difficult economy that is faced by so many.

When the goal of a department is to provide the best quality service at the lowest possible cost, rather than huge profits and big CEO compensation packages, amazing things can happen. Through innovative and creative management and by utilizing aggressive energy efficiency measures, electricity use in Burlington is 1 percent below what it was in 1989--saving Burlington customers some $6.7 million a year. Burlington is using less power at a time of economic growth--a remarkable achievement. Since 1995 average rates have decreased by 17 percent. Clearly there is something very right about the Burlington Electric Department which the rest of Vermont and America can learn from.

Several years ago I brought a number of the most innovative electric departments in the country together for a meeting in Washington. I was very proud that the BED showed itself to be one of the very best in the nation. Given the major energy crisis that our country now faces, I am confident that BED will continue to come forward with bold and innovative ideas to protect our rate-payers and our environment.

Whether it is in the normal operation of business, or dealing with power outages from an ice storm or a blizzard, the employees of Burlington Electric serve the people of Burlington with real dedication. Whatever the job is, they get it done.

To Mayor Clavelle, Barbara Grimes, BED's General Manager; to the Electric Commission; and the City Council; and most especially to the men and women who not only work for the Electric Department but make it work for all of Burlington:

Congratulations on BED's hundredth anniversary.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman from New York for yielding me this time.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong opposition to this rule and to the underlying legislation. I rise in opposition not just because an important amendment that I offered, along with the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Conyers), the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Paul), the gentleman from New York (Mr. Nadler), the gentleman from New Mexico (Mr. Udall), and the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Eshoo) was not accepted by the Committee on Rules, but because this very same amendment has already been passed on the floor of this House by a 51- vote margin just a few weeks ago.

On June 15, by a vote of 238-187, this body voted overwhelmingly for the exact same amendment which would stop the FBI and other government agencies from going into our libraries and book stores without probable cause. We voted on that by a 238-187 vote; and now, a few weeks later, this provision is not included in the bill, and the Republican leadership has refused to allow the Members to even vote on it.

This, my friends, is an outrageous abuse of power and denies the majority of Members here the right to put into the bill what they want. There is no excuse for that. If you wanted to speak against it, let it come up, argue against it. But it has passed once; it will likely pass again. But the Republican leadership has not allowed that issue to be debated.

This whole discussion about the USA PATRIOT Act deals with two issues. Number one, every Member of this body is pledged to do everything that he or she can to protect the American people from the horrendous scourge of terrorism, but some of us have more confidence in our law enforcement agencies and the American people than others do. We believe that we can fight terrorism and protect the American people without undermining the basic constitutional rights which make us a free country.

Let all of us remember that in the 1940s innocent Japanese Americans, without any pretext, were herded into internment camps. In the 1960s, a President of the United States had a file on him, President Kennedy, by the FBI. In the 1960s, Martin Luther King, Jr., who some of us consider to be one of the great heroes of the 20th century, was hounded and investigated by the FBI.

The issue today is how do we effectively fight terrorism, but do it in a way which protects the constitutional rights which make us a free country.

I urge a ``no'' vote on the rule.

Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. Speaker, we understand what happened today. Tell me why you will not allow that amendment to come up for a vote, despite the fact that the majority of the Members support it.

Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.

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

This tripartisan amendment is being cosponsored by the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Hostettler), the gentlewoman from South Dakota (Ms. Herseth), the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. LoBiondo), the gentleman from Oklahoma (Mr. Boren), the gentleman from Connecticut (Mr. Shays), and the gentlewoman from Connecticut (Ms. DeLauro). It also has the strong support of the AFL-CIO, representing 13 million American workers, the Transportation Trades Department, the Professional Airway Systems Specialists and the National Association of Air Traffic Specialists.

Mr. Chairman, on February 1, 2005, the FAA awarded a $1.9 billion contract to Lockheed Martin to close 38 out of 61 automated flight service stations across the country and privatize 20 others. This contract is not scheduled to go into effect until October 1, 2005.

If this contract is implemented, over 1,000 highly trained air traffic control specialists will be in danger of losing their jobs, and the retirement benefits of some 2,500 Federal aviation workers will also be in jeopardy.

Mr. Chairman, this privatization scheme is a bad idea, a wrong idea for a number of reasons. First and foremost is the question of air safety, something that is on the mind of every Member of Congress and every American person who flies.

Flight service stations are crucial to the safety and security of our Nation's air space. They provide a host of critical services to more than 600,000 general aviation pilots, as well as providing assistance to military and commercial pilots.

Air traffic control specialists advise pilots on such information as terrain, pre-flight and in-flight weather information, suggested routes of flight, altitudes and indications of turbulence or icing. As a matter of fact, when this country was attacked on September 11, 2001, the key national security function of air traffic control specialists was on full display. During that national tragedy, air traffic control specialists communicated crucial information to planes in the air and on the ground and were responsible for restarting air traffic in the days following. In addition, Mr. Chairman, keeping airplanes out of restricted air space is the responsibility of air traffic control specialists.

Further, air traffic control specialists are critical to protect our airways during a natural disaster. When hurricanes hit the southeast last year, flight service stations remained open, and air traffic control specialists remained working to ensure the safety of airline passengers, even though other FAA facilities were shut down.

Mr. Chairman, it is my very strong opinion that we should not be compromising air safety by privatizing air traffic control specialists to a corporation, Lockheed Martin, whose main function in life is making a profit. When passengers get on a plane, when passengers take off and land at an airport, they want to know that everything possible is being done to protect the safety of those flights and not that operations have been turned out to the lowest possible bidder.

Interestingly enough, Mr. Chairman, Congress has already passed a provision prohibiting three flight service stations in Alaska from being privatized, and that provision has been signed into law by the President. Mr. Chairman, I support that law and believe that what is good for Alaska, a State highly dependent on air travel, should be good for the rest of the country and that we should prevent flight service stations across the country from closing, which is exactly what this amendment will do.

Mr. Chairman, the second important reason that we should pass this amendment is that at a time when millions of American workers are worried that the pensions that have been promised to them will not be there when they retire, we must show that Congress will not be complicit in that process and that we will stand up for them when their pensions are going to be slashed.

Mr. Chairman, if this amendment fails, not only will 1,000 highly trained air traffic control specialists be in danger of losing their jobs, but the retirement benefits of some 2,500 Federal aviation workers, most of whom are over the age of 40, will be in jeopardy. That is wrong.

The Federal Government must set an example to the private sector. When we promise a Federal employee that he or she will get a pension, that promise must be kept. If we do not keep our promises regarding pensions to Federal employees, how can we expect that United Airlines or other major corporations will keep their promises?

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

Mr. Chairman, I am pleased to yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Oklahoma (Mr. Boren).

Mr. Chairman, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Kucinich).

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

Mr. Chairman, may I inquire as to how many more speakers the gentleman from Michigan has?

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

Mr. Chairman, the issue here is a simple one: We cannot compromise the air safety of the United States of America to the lowest bidder, whose main function in life is profiteering rather than protecting the needs of American air travelers.

Equally important, we cannot turn our backs on the promises made to 2,500 Federal employees in terms of their pensions. If we turn our backs on them, we are turning our backs on millions of American workers whose pensions can also be slashed. Let us protect Federal employees. Let us pass this amendment.

Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.

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

This tri-partisan amendment has widespread support across the ideological spectrum, from Democrats and Republicans, from progressives to conservatives. It is being cosponsored today by the gentleman from California (Mr. Rohrabacher), the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Ryan), the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Paul), and the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Kucinich). It also is being supported by a number of leading national organizations including the National Taxpayers Union; Friends of the Earth; Citizens Against Government Waste; the Green Scissors Coalition; Taxpayers For Common Sense; and U.S. PIRG, the U.S. Public Interest Research Group.

Mr. Chairman, this amendment is simple and straightforward. It would prohibit the Export-Import Bank from providing corporate welfare for the construction of nuclear power plants in China.

Mr. Chairman, I think the rationale for supporting this amendment is obvious. At a time when we have a $7.7 trillion national debt and a record-breaking Federal deficit, it is not only absurd, but it is dangerous for the taxpayers of this country to be subsidizing the construction of nuclear power plants in China.

Mr. Chairman, amazingly enough, the company involved here, Westinghouse Electric, which builds nuclear technology is owned by British National Fuels which itself is a company wholly owned by the British government. So we are dealing with the absurdity of American taxpayers who are in the midst of a record breaking deficit, subsidizing the British government, a nation which, to the best of my knowledge, is not made up of starving, desperate people in the developing world.

Mr. Chairman, there is no debate, but that when these four nuclear power plants will be built at a cost which involves an Export-Import loan of some $5 billion, that when these nuclear power plants will be built, the Chinese will own the technology. And a question that every Member of this Congress should be asking is, is it really in the best interest of the United States of America to provide advanced nuclear technology to China. Furthermore, the Chinese company which is building these four nuclear power plants, the Chinese national nuclear company has been tied to at least three instances of weapons proliferation involving Iran and Pakistan.

Mr. Chairman, I do not always agree with the National Taxpayers Union. But let me briefly summarize what they say in a letter that they sent to me today.

NTU has long advocated total elimination of taxpayer funding of the Export-Import Bank for the simple fact that American taxpayers should not be forced to subsidize the overseas operation of U.S. corporation or foreign governments. Considering the rapid pace of economic growth in China and its emergence as a strong force in the global business environment, it is particularly egregious to waste taxpayer dollars on such a project.

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

Mr. Chairman, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. Rohrabacher).

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

In another time and place, I would like to deal with many of the assertions made by my friend who just spoke, but now is not the time.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 3\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Kucinich).

Mr. Chairman, how much time remains for either side?

The gentleman from Arizona closes; is that correct?

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself the balance of the time.

The American middle class is shrinking, and one of the reasons that we are losing good-paying jobs is that corporation after corporation is throwing American workers out on the street and moving to countries like China where desperate people are paid 30 cents an hour, 20 cents an hour and go to jail when they stand up for their political rights or stand up for their right to form a union.

There is increasing concern by people from all walks of life that the economy of China, which is growing in leaps and bounds, is threatening the American standard of living. Whether it is blue collar jobs or white collar, information technology jobs, China is growing while our jobs are shrinking; and we are losing good-paying jobs and providing our young people with low-wage jobs, with minimal benefits.

If it makes sense to anybody in this country to be putting $5 billion of American taxpayer money at risk, to be subsidizing the development of nuclear power plants in China, providing them with the technology that can be used for military purposes, with a company that is owned by the British Government, if somebody got up here and proposed subsidies for a federally owned company, people on the other side would go ballistic; but it is okay to be subsidizing a nationalized company in Great Britain providing and building nuclear power plants in China.

I think that the time is long overdue that the United States Congress took a very hard look at Export-Import Bank in general. Over the years, what we have seen is they are providing huge subsidies to large corporations who are outsourcing American jobs. In this instance, they are providing a subsidy to a British company owned by their own government building nuclear power plants in China.

I think that is a very bad deal. I think the American people would be shocked if we allowed this to go through, and I hope that we can support this tri-partisan amendment.

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

Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. Speaker, there are over 800,000 volunteer firefighters in the United States. Of the 30,000 fire departments in the United States, two thirds are entirely made up of volunteers-- 21,761 companies. Another 5,271 companies are mostly made up of volunteers.

In my own state of Vermont there are 246 small towns--and 244 fire departments. Five of them are in large cities, where there first responders are full time, paid firefighters. Vermont has 265 paid firefighters--all brave and dedicated men and women.

But in rural Vermont, dotted with small cities and smaller towns, there is often neither the population base nor the budget to support full-time firefighters. But thousands of remarkable men and women step into the breech, giving generously of their time and energy and commitment to make sure our residences, our businesses, our farms, our towns, are safe. Vermont, with a population of about 620,000, has an astonishing 6,235 volunteer firefighters. Just over one person in every hundred who lives in our largely rural state has devoted himself or herself to protecting the community in which they live.

These first responders are models for people across our entire nation of what commitment to one's neighbor looks like. Every day they demonstrate, in good weather and bad, in sweltering summer heat when their boots and coats are like ovens, and in the depths of winter when the temperature goes to 25 below and frostbite threatens, that they are willing to put their lives on the line to protect the lives of others.

Our nation was built by people who were as concerned about their neighbors as they were about their own interests. It has been sustained by brave men and women who love their country, their community, their neighbors and family, as much as they love life itself. And that tradition of service and bravery continues in Vermont. I proudly celebrate, today, the remarkable volunteer firefighters of Vermont. We all owe them a debt of gratitude: They are among the great unsung heroes of our times.